Domination
by LexLuthor13
Summary: post-ROTF. While NEST and the Autobots deal with another Decepticon incursion on Earth, Megatron and Starscream dig into the heart of Cybertron itself for a new army. Their new scheme? Simple. Eliminate the Autobots' human conspirators...
1. Megatron

Earth.

Home to the human race, this planet has become the new battleground in our ancient war against the Decepticons. Twice have we placed the humans at risk, incurring the lasting wrath of Megatron.

Yet beyond the confines of our civil war, a deeper evil festers.

Eons ago, caught in a civil war on our home planet, we jettisoned the Cube into space. To protect it from Megatron, we sacrificed Cybertron.

Our home lays in the thrall of the Decepticons now. Headed by Megatron's most vicious lieutenant.

And I fear we may never see our home again.

* * *

**Mars.**

**The **_**Nemesis**_**.**

**Starscream and Megatron.**

In the arid wastes of the dead orb the humans call 'The Red Planet', amid the shattered ruins of the once-mighty fleet carrier _Nemesis_, Megatron sat, cozened safely in a prostrate stasis platform. Surrounded by length upon length of micro and macro-cables, secured into the platform, channelling energon's restorative powers to his Spark, feeding his joints and servos and processors. Repairing every circuit, bypassing every relay. Making him whole once more.

Yes, cozened.

Lied to.

Betrayed.

As ever.

It was Megatron's lot to be surrounded by the dissembling, the cowardly, the fanatical, the weak. All were attracted to the promise he swore to deliver.

Domination.

As his master had promised him. And then summarily failed to deliver.

He could trust no one.

His optics burned brilliant red for a moment and their steel covers narrowed, and the irony was not lost on him.

The lessons he had tried to instil in his own puny warriors...he had himself come to believe in them. And the abstractions of domination had once again eluded his grasp.

When Prime plunged that sabre into his master's head and ripped out his Spark.

Megatron's vocoder rumbled.

His optics glowed red once more and he sat upright. The cables snapped away from his form in pneumatic pops and whistles and retreated automatically into the ceiling and board circuitries.

Trust could not be writ large. Could not be simply taken.

And initiative was inborn. Innate. Immutable. From those who were of like processors.

He stood. Clenched one manipulator into a cold steel fist.

"Starscream," he bellowed across the darkened expanse of the _Nemesis_. "Come here. I want you."

The Air Commander was suddenly at Megatron's side. Like he always was. He had taken the form of a human aircraft—something they called an 'F-22 Raptor'. And in Megatron's absence, Starscream had retreated to Cybertron. Given himself new tattoos in the ancient language as a form of war paint.

Starscream bowed on one avian leg, kept his gaze on the floor. When he spoke, the vox was low and grovelling. "What do you command, mighty Megatron?"

Megatron was standing free of the stasis platform now, his burning red optics gazing longingly through the slatted hole in the _Nemesis_' hull. Above, the stars shone with age-old brilliance. Shining as they did when Primus first created Cybertron.

Megatron's vocoder grumbled again.

He turned to Starscream.

"Our previous attempts were a failure, Starscream."

"Master, I must disag—"

Megatron turned and batted Starscream away with his manipulator. "Do not question me, you pewling fool. The Allspark eluded my grasp, and the humans twice have driven us back. We will strike anew. We must."

Starscream massaged his cranium gently. "Master. Why? Our fortunes are intact. Why risk another defeat?"

Megatron turned slowly to the Air Commander. Oddly receptive. "You have another plan?"

"We should return to Cybertron!" Starscream said. His optics were brilliant with enthusiasm for a moment. "Wipe out the resistance that has plagued Shockwave for these long cycles. Reconstitute our armies. And then crush the Autobots forever!"

Megatron condescended. "You couldn't lead androids to a picnic, Starscream." Megatron clutched Starscream's head in his claws. His vox rumbled, animalistic and furious. "I must win this war. I must get free, and in Prime's mind is the key."

"Couldn't—" Starscream choked out—"couldn't we simply...leave this place? You have your army aboard this ship. Why not open a bridge to Cybertron and reclaim it. Shockwave has left matters as you commanded. It would be all too easy to reclaim what was once yours."

Megatron released Starscream. "Victory in this war," he maintained, "comes with the lasting death of Prime. Cybertron is a hiding place."

"The humans routed us," Starscream said. "It was unavoidable."

"Then we must eliminate Prime's human conspirators, first and foremost. Break his spirit!"

Starscream stood and slunk away slowly.

"The final stage of the war begins with the new marshalling of our remaining forces."

Megatron was at a solid part of the _Nemesis_' hull. He waved his hand over a motion sensor and two dim platforms in the wall wheezed with the slow release of compression gas, then slid apart. The viewscreen flickered to life.

The shape on the other end was tall, dark. Fearful. Imposing.

A bipedal violet behemoth in steel, crested by a slim hexagonal head and a glowing yellow headlamp.

Shockwave.

The single headlamp glowed at the sight of Megatron.

"Lord Megatron," Shockwave said, dispassionately. As ever. As if ten thousand cycles had not passed since his leader had entrusted all of Cybertron to Shockwave. "What do you command?"

"Reports of my offline status were greatly exaggerated," Megatron said. "I want you and a squadron of our best troops in my presence inside one cycle, Shockwave. Understood?"

"Acknowledged. I shall leave Cybertron in the care of the Headmasters."

"Good," Megatron said. "It would be unfortunate if I had to leave our crown jewel unattended." The image faded.

Across the void, Shockwave stood from his console and immediately sent a summons for Skywarp and Thundercracker.

Aboard the _Nemesis_, Megatron turned away from the screen and grabbed Starscream by the steel ring about his neck.

"Summon Soundwave."

Megatron released his grip on the Air Commander. In another moment, Starscream was in flight, flipping and contorting himself into his assumed earthly form, and shooting away from the ruined _Nemesis_ in a high and spinning arc.

The Earth's marbled spheroid came into view a moment later. Starscream slowed to impulse power as his sensors registered Soundwave in the distance—a slim and spindly satellite motionless against the Earth.

He had never liked Soundwave.

Had loathed Megatron.

In the deepest centres of his processors, Starscream's hatred grew.

* * *

**Earth.**

**Optimus Prime.**

In the aftermath of Megatron and The Fallen's scheme to destroy Earth's sun, and the rescue of their human familiar Sam Witwicky from the brink of death, the Autobot's alliance with Earth governments had improved. Somewhat.

Perhaps it was natural that they engender mistrust.

The irony was not lost on Optimus Prime. He and his kind were larger-than-life robotic organisms from a distant world. It was not hyperbole to say so.

Mistrust, unfortunate as it was, was the humans' right.

So it grieved him to say and think and do so. But it was natural.

The facts, such as they were, were that the Autobots were not at home anymore. And their homeworld was dead.

All of this, Prime told to Captain William Lennox.

"Even if Cybertron were alive," Prime continued. "It would still be unfeasible for us to return."

"Uh-huh," Lennox said. His eyes narrowed, slightly confused. "Why's that?"

"When we launched the Cube into space, Megatron followed it, and we in turn followed him."

"Leaving the place to them," Lennox supplied.

Prime nodded and his optics looked down. Weary.

"I'm sorry," Lennox said. He shifted weight from one leg to the other, nervous. He wasn't sure why he was apologizing. But he was. He wanted to sympathise. Blackout—though Lennox'd only figured out that name later—had destroyed Lennox's base in Qatar. Killed most of his friends, comrades, and officers. Once Megatron had been dumped in the ocean and a team finally dispatched to assess the base damage, there was nothing left. A few burned out husks of 130s, a couple of overturned tanks, charred from the attack and strip-mined for parts by interested (and long-gone) scavengers.

Those were the limits of Blackout's mercy.

It was training alone that kept Lennox and his men alive. And he had to admit—every so often since 'D-Day'—how it felt to slide under that damn helicopter and pop the sabot round right into his damn chest.

Soldiers don't do revenge.

Lennox did.

He'd almost resigned because of it.

Morshower kept him in. Said he needed men like Lennox if these robots weren't going to go away anytime soon.

So Lennox had stayed. Against his will, at first, but it got better. By the time of Shanghai, life was good for Will Lennox. Very good.

So there was guilt. Sure. Lots of it. It's to be had in this line of work, he'd supposed.

"No need to apologise, Captain. Our world is a mausoleum now, gated in by death and destruction, and the Decepticons are holding the keys."

Lennox thought for a moment. "Is there a way to get it back?"

Prime looked at Lennox squarely. "I cannot risk the lives of my troops. They are brave, but the Decepticons are furious. And they do not stop."

"Yeah," Lennox said. "Don't we know it..."

Uncharacteristically, Prime leaned in toward Lennox. "Captain," he said. "You have my eternal gratitude for allowing us to stay here. The threat of Megatron still looms, but I am glad that you and your people have chosen to stand with us and allow more of our number to come here."

Lennox looked into Optimus' big, blue optics. Slightly overcome, he gathered his military bearing and came around. "You helped save us from your friend Megatron. Least we can do is provide asylum. Now what about these new arrivals?"

Optimus stood and walked at Lennox's pace down the hangar.

"You already know Wheeljack. Allow me to introduce you to Prowl..."

* * *

**22,000 miles above Galway, Ireland.**

**Starscream and Soundwave.**

Soundwave barely gave Starscream notice when the Seeker Commander approached him, but he knew Starscream was there. He was always bloody _knew_.

Cycles ago, and as near as Starscream's impatient processor could figure, it had been Soundwave's sole duty to be imposing enough that the others wouldn't dare cross him. Probably he was put up to this by Megatron, who needed an obedient lapdog; the same way Megatron had put custody of Cybertron up to Shockwave because the cycloptic little slagheap was the only other one really and fully loyal. It had also been Soundwave's job—and this one he took upon himself with particular elation—to harry and hinder Starscream at more or less every turn.

As much as a Decepticon processor could rationalise something like 'getting along', Starscream and Soundwave never had. There always was a struggle for dominance.

Always.

Partially it was because Starscream was never able to beat Soundwave in single combat; whenever one of their low-grade lubricating matches came around, Soundwave would sic his 'pets' on a given combatant and then sit back and watch. It was dirty and lazy. Even by Starscream's standards.

In another way, it was because Soundwave was always going on about how superior he was, so much so that by the time the Autobots launched the Cube into space, Starscream wanted to throw Soundwave after it in the empirical interest of seeing what happened. It was all very put up or shut up.

The fact of the matter had been that even before their initial dalliance with the humans two of their years ago, Starscream had interceded on Megatron's departed behalf and taken control, and there were Decepticons who, quite naturally, despised Starscream's showing of initiative. Blackout and Soundwave particularly. One he could handle. The other happened to be Soundwave.

Yet Starscream assume command anyway.

Most of them came on-side with no question and no choice—Barricade, Grindor, Thundercracker and Skywarp. Others came on and brought their stupid little opinions with them—Blackout mostly, but since the humans had removed that particular obstacle, Starscream's life was a little easier.

There was still Soundwave.

Doggedly loyal to Megatron. Doggedly persistent that any expedition to Earth had to be for the sole mission of finding Megatron and then, and only then, retrieving the Cube.

Incapacitating the humans was secondary.

Punishing them for their treatment of Wreckage was secondary.

Giving them anything other than a disdain that, to Soundwave himself, was entirely justified, was also secondary.

Starscream accelerated as he passed the Earth Moon. And he wanted, so badly, to shove a vibro-pike into Soundwave's spark. Just to see his optics flare for a moment and his pets freeze in astonishment at the death of their silly little master.

Yes, that was it. He was little.

They were all so little.

Starscream's vox emitted a disgusted little growl.

Not so long ago, during that first dalliance two of their years ago, Starscream had done Soundwave one better by extinguishing two sparks with one blow. Finding the Cube and Megatron not a kilometre from it by the use of one of Soundwave's old pets—the one he'd bequeathed to Barricade in the early stages of the war.

Things never changed.

Like Megatron and Shockwave (though that was with good reason), Soundwave had stayed in his native form, a Cybertronian satellite with spindly, insectoid extensions and compartments hiding his pets.

Starscream approached. Low altitude, impulse speed. He didn't want to perturb Soundwave—who as it turned out enjoyed the preferential treatment Starscream accorded him. Neither did Starscream want Soundwave to sic his little goons on him.

One of those goons had been castrated in Egypt; Bumblebee had ripped out Ravage's spine in a remarkable showing. The rest of them, though, Soundwave kept under lock and key, hidden away beneath his satellite panels.

Starscream's slowness didn't work at any rate. Rumble was the first one out. He perched himself on Soundwave's shoulder, while Soundwave came about to stare Starscream in the face. Laserbeak was next, hovering about Soundwave's head, while Ratbat perched itself on the other shoulder.

Starscream twisted again into his bipedal form. The F-22 wings folded on gossamer platings and slid back behind what the humans would have called 'shoulders'. His spindly appendages and digits were clawed, and he let them hover in an eerie curl about his midsection. So it looked like he was going to tackle Soundwave without actually doing anything. This was Starscream sharpening his claws. Slightly.

"Call them off," Starscream said and narrowed his optics for effect.

"Negative," was all Soundwave said. It was all he ever said. Thoroughly uncharismatic. "Soundwave requests explanation for presence."

"Megatron commands you to make contact with him," Starscream said, inflecting at all the right points to sound just contemptuous enough. "Cease your operations here and follow me back to the _Nemesis_."

"Soundwave does not recognize your authority."

Starscream threw an accusatory claw forward. "You will listen to me, you clattering collection of circuits! I am your leader!"

"Starscream inferior. Soundwave superior."

That rankled him. He powered away from Soundwave—at which Rumble finally stopped bristling. Starscream shot Rumble a dirty look, and then transformed back into his jet mode.

"Hate me all you want, Soundwave," he said over the vox and sounded pompous as ever. "Your loyalty was never in question, but if you doubt me...if you don't return right now, it certainly will be."

Starscream powered his thrusters to full amplitude, and blasted away. Didn't even wait for a reply.

Slowly, carefully, logically, Soundwave yawed and powered his thrusters to life. Rumble, Laserbeak and Ratbat returned to their hiding places. Then Soundwave was gone. Rocketing in a thin arc toward the humans' Red Planet.

* * *

**Earth. Diego Garcia.**

**Optimus Prime and Cpt. William Lennox.**

It was Morshower over the viewscreen. Looking worried—harried—as usual.

"Lennox, get your men up, we've got a blip on the radar in Toronto."

Lennox's brow furrowed. "An unauthorized arrival?"

Morshower nodded. "More like a resurfacing. We think we've seen him before."

"Do you have a visual, General?"

"Sending it to your mobile. It's moving fast, in and out of sensor range, but we think it's a car."

Prime leaned in. "What kind of car?"

"A police car," Morshower said.

Lennox sighed and his eyebrows raised and fell slowly in that 'color me surprised' way. "Acknowledged," he said and switched the viewscreen off. He turned around.

The gantry was a square, twenty feet high to meet with Prime's field of vision and open totally on one end to allow his vehicle form to enter and exit at will. On the northwest corner of the gantry was an impressive array of communications and monitoring software, meant to connect NEST HQ with Centcom in Washington and elsewhere.

Lennox looked at Prime, who looked oddly concerned. "Well?"

"Barricade," Prime said, calmly. "Allow us to deal with it, Captain."

"You want back-up?"

Prime was in vehicle mode already and Lennox slid down the gantry stairs to keep pace as the semi-truck rolled out of the hangar. Lennox caught up in a moment and strode quickly alongside Prime, right next to his headlamps. They blinked on and off as he spoke in a kind of Morse code.

"Send a squad to help, if you feel it necessary," Prime said over the vox. In a slightly louder voice that Lennox was sure piped into the auditory receptors of every Autobot in range (and probably any Decepticons monitoring, which he was sure there were), Prime said, "Prowl and Ratchet, report to the landing strip for deployment."

* * *

**_Continued..._**


	2. Starscream

Earth.

The home to humanity, that odd collection of porous, fanciful, deluded and utterly weak beings called Man.

Twice have they interfered. Once killing Megatron, the other killing his master, the Fallen. This, the humans labelled a great victory. This, they thought a worthy accomplishment.

And this planet...

Starscream's optics rolled in their sockets. Unimpressed.

_Humans_. The word, the very thought, grated.

What was it precisely?

The humans. Just. Didn't get it. Neither did Prime and his guerillas.

Not one bit.

_Imagine hating someone so much that you conduct a war in your own name just to get to him. And then imagine_ _that you and you alone possess not only the presence of mind to usher in Cybertron's great future, but also that you and you alone can rally like-minded beings to the cause._

_And then suppose that this group of like-minded beings indeed destroys that planet over the course of their war. That they raze it to its very foundations through what a human mind might call small-scale thermonuclear war. Suppose these like-minded beings don't care about politics or ideology or even territory, really._

_All they care about is being right._

_And killing beings who dare say otherwise._

Despite himself, and despite everything that had happened in these long megacycles, Starscream had given himself to Megatron's mission. Utterly. The thought of defection--of jumping to Prime's guerillas--held no promise. Only slightly more enticing was the idea of striking out on his own. He made a note to notify Vortex of this later. But leaving Megatron for the Autobots?

What fantasy, he thought. Prime was as bad as Megatron. And Megatron was a monster.

But he was also completely and utterly dependent on Starscream.

_That alone was worth staying around for._

Humans. Just. Got in the way. Of a war that transcended annoying limits of time or space or planetary boundaries.

The war had come to the humans' doorstep and in their magnanimity they offered to help Prime and his pitiable freedom-fighters against the Decepticons, and true to their nature they had scored a minor victory. Or two.

Starscream's vocodor let out a steely rumble.

Of course the humans didn't get it. They were...disposable. Temporary. Easily killed, easily given to their mania. They couldn't be expected to comprehend a war in which they had a spectator's interest.

_But Megatron._

Megatron understood the reasons for his stupid little war. Understood perfectly. Looked at the way Cybertron had been, and the way Prime had been, and made his war. A simple execution, really.

_This is all his fault._

In the hedgerow behind the abode of one Calvin Banes, age 48, Starscream settled. The force-field over his hulking form rippled in the moonlight to match the pine trees behind him.

_Megatron understands. Perfectly._

_And he doesn't care._

That, Starscream hated.

More than anything.

Twelve metres away, Rumble was climbing its way up the spouting, its spindly appendages whirling and catching and flipping as might an expert rhombodroid. It hunched noiselessly outside a barely open window. The light from inside cast a dull halo over Rumble's axial spines.

_Go._

Rumble did.

A moment later, the screaming started.

Starscream's optics glowed in satisfaction.

* * *

**Mars.**

**The **_**Nemesis**_**.**

Megatron was staring at the striated starscape of the Martian night. Through the same mangled hole in the hull he had only hours ago sent Starscream on their new mission.

He lacked what the humans might have called a sense of smell, but his processors made up for that in other ways.

His armour was capable of withstanding massive shifts in heat differentials as well as the vacuum of space—not to mention the quintillion degree burn of the Cube as it exerted its last shreds of life into his own Spark. A paltry human sense of smell just didn't compare to all that.

His optics burned brightly as the containment slats narrowed above and below them. The eye-narrow, parlance of the intrigued.

Eons ago, long ago now but not so distant for Megatron the Living—

Yes, the living. That was his self-bestowed name. Despite whatever happened.

With the boy.

Which as it turned out, Soundwave was seeing to, right about—

Megatron synchronized his internal chrono—

—Now.

His vocodor emitted a steely and guttural monotone. Amused, perhaps, or disappointed.

Megatron the living.

He couldn't remember a time when existence seemed this.

Sedate.

In the distance, the Nodus Gordii mountains stuck out, modest and majestic outcroppings created, perhaps, by the humans' elusive and noninterventionist deity.

Megatron could admire that. Somehow.

_Megatron_.

He paused.

Lumbered away from the gaping hole in the hull, his appendages grasping a fallen support column and ripping it away. An impromptu defence.

"Show yourself," he rumbled.

_Be not constrained by quantum dogma, Lord of Cybertron._

"Parlour tricks!" Megatron's optics burned brightly again. Roving around in wild curiosity.

He formed his right arm into its cannon and fired against the distant hull; the curved supports and hull plating blew away in a momentary paroxysm of fire.

_I lack the ability of physical presence. But I can do something else for you._

"Who are you?!"

_Lower your primitive weapon, Lord of Cybertron. Let us speak._

"I will speak," Megatron said. "When I know the name of my challenger."

_Unicron._

The arm cannon clattered and streamlined back into a clawed manipulator.

Megatron was still. "So. The legends are true."

_Yes. I have come to you, Lord of Cybertron, for one purpose._

"Name it."

_In all of the myriad paths of infinity—in all the worlds there are, were, and ever shall be—you, Megatron the Living, exist. There are countless others across countless realities. Your form differs from universe to universe. This form I find particularly enlightening. _

"And?"_  
_

_Yet I am alone. A multiversal singularity. One speck among the infinities. And I have a mission for you._

"I cannot be bothered with errands for gods, Destroyer. Take your favours elsewhere."

_Find the boy that killed you, Lord of Cybertron._

"Why?"

_Samuel James Witwicky is one such singularity. He exists only in this time. In this universe. No other._

"So?"

_Consider it a favour, Lord of Cybertron. Samuel James Witwicky killed you. Bring him to me, that I might erase his cosmic irregularity from existence, and in so doing avenge you. _

"My honour stands exonerated with the destruction of Prime. Not some cringing human spore."

_And yet Prime lives, while you have suffered twin setbacks._

"Be mindful fo yourself, destroyer. I am not above killing gods."

_Regardless. Kill the human anomaly, Megatron. In exchange, I grant you the right to call on my services—though once and only once. Think about it, Lord of Cybertron. The power of the destroyer god at your very command. Beyond good. Beyond evil. Beyond Prime. The Fallen. Even Primus himself.  
_

_To use as you see fit...

* * *

_

**Earth.**

**Toronto.**

**Prowl.**

He had taken the form of something the humans called a 'Dodge Charger police cruiser'. Black and white scheme, with glittering lights on the roof and the appropriate marginalia denoting a sufficient disguise while in vehicle mode. That was the point.

Prowl had his own reasons for selecting the police car form.

It had also been the form of his brother...

But that was another life.

The target lay ahead, something their human counterparts called a 'Saleen S281 Mustang', parked behind a domed glass structure Prowl was told was a 'Palm House'.

None of it made sense to Prowl.

He crouched behind a treeline, in Toronto's downtown Allan Gardens.

Cannons slid out from his scapulae and up onto his shoulders. His optics glowed bright blue for a moment, magnifying the target.

Behind him, Ratchet rustled.

"No sudden movements," Ratchet said.

"Yes, I know," Prowl said. "Just be ready."

Cracklig from behind Prowl. He looked back. Ratchet's right manipulator transmogrified into a minigun, his left into a buzzsaw.

"No surprises," Prowl said. Then stepped out from behind the tree-line.

The Saleen's headlights lit up, landed on him instantly.

Prowl stopped. Put his manipulators in the air and then walked slowly toward the Saleen.

Which started to change.

Its hood buckled. Arms came out of nowhere on its underside, slamming on the ground. Legs came out from the boot and shuddered to support the shifting mechanical weight. The sirens and lights on the roof started blinking wildly, covering the Palm House in strobe bands of red and blue. The hood striated and angled sharply in the centre.

The head slid out from the hood in thin strands and coalesced, it's optics burning the colour of human blood and staring into Prowl's own for a long moment. Then the head angled to one side, empirical and quizzical.

Barricade.

Prowl's shoulder tensors relaxed.

Barricade's voice was heavily modulated, and when he finally spoke, the vox was leaden and emotionless:

"Well?"

Prowl emitted a modulated chuckle. "Well, well, well," he said. "Here we are."

"You haven't killed me yet."

"No."

"But you can."

"Yes."

"Ratchet is hiding in the woods. Prime and Ironhide further afield. My sensors don't lie, Prowl. Hopefully, neither do you."

"Alright," Prowl said. "Fine. It seems you showed up on human scanning instruments earlier this day. They dispatched us to intercept you."

"Before I did something really awful."

"Yes."

Barricade shook his head. And started pacing in a wide circle around Prowl.

Prowl followed suit. Both of his shoulder cannons slid into place and focused on Barricade's chest. Barricade pulled one of his tyres into a spike-mace and clutched it in one manipulator.

"I don't get it, Barricade. You could have done so much better."

"And the lectures..."

"You could have joined us. Saved Cybertron."

"There was no alternative."

"You fought a war to destroy Cybetron! And for what?!"

Barricade rose a metre in the air. His arms stretched and he seemed. Bigger. Imposing. A techno-hen with holoprint feathers, showing off. Prowl was not amused.

"There was no alternative!" Barricade bellowed. "What would you have me do? Join you and the rest of the dissidents?"

"Dissidents?"

"Prime and Bumblebee," Barricade rumbled. "You all rose up in opposition to the government legally in place."

"The future of our planet was at stake. We couldn't allow Megatron to ravage Cybertron anymore."

Barricade's optics narrowed. "You signed Cybertron's death warrant by sending the Cube away. Your moral authority on the matter was forfeit the very instant that happened."

"Barricade—"

"This is all your fault!"

Then he flung the spike-mace at Prowl.

Prowl ducked it expertly. One shoulder cannon fired off two quick rounds at Barricade. One slammed into his chest, another at his left arm, another missed. Sparks flew away from Barricade as he went to one knee and turned around. Formed his right manipulator into a plasma cannon and fired back.

Again, Prowl evaded.

Jumped in the air, flipped around and kicked Barricade in the head.

Pinned him to the ground.

"Brother," Prowl said. "Grow up."

Barricade's vox rumbled again. He fired his plasma cannon unto Prowl's underchassis.

And stood up when Prowl flew across the lot from the blasts.

"What was I going to do?" Barricade asked. "Join Prime? Hold myself to your foolish ideas?"

"We fight for freedom!" Prowl's vox hacked up garbled static, and he propped himself on one elbow. "For our homes and our history. Tell me, brother. What does Megatron fight for?"

"Against your kind," Barricade said.

"Why did you leave us?" Prowl's vox hovered between anger and desperation. "What did Megatron and Starscream promise you?!"

"Nothing!" Another plasma burst. Caught Prowl in the leg and the kinetic force flipped him over.

Prowl righted himself. Said, "They let you be yourself, is that it? No ideologies, no promises. Just service. Doing what you want to do because you want to do it—or do you just like killing things, Barricade? Tell me!"

Pause.

Barricade slid the spike-mace back in on itself and positioned it back on his manipulator.

"Your trademark logic betrays you." He turned to leave. Laid one clawed manipulator on a nearby oak tree and angled his head back a degree. "Get in my way again, brother, and I'll kill you."

Barricade crouched a moment later, reassuming the Saleen form. Sped away, boring tracks into the water-logged earth, throwing up plumes of mud as he went.

Prowl watched him go. Stood and inspected his armaments. The shoulder cannons were intact as was his chassis for the most part. Barricade's plasma cannons had done a number on his leg, though; at such close range, no other outcome could have been expected.

Ratchet stepped out from the treeline and immediately knelt in front of Prowl. Micro-manipulators ejected from his larger ones and got to work suturing Prowl's splintered and burned motors.

Prime and Ironhide joined them a moment later.

"I'm sorry, Prime," Prowl said. "I should not have given him room."

"It's no concern," Prime said, his head angled toward the night sky, as distant and somehow paternalistic as ever. "You did your best, Prowl, and we're grateful to have you."

"I can go after him," Prowl said.

"I'd bet the planet he's going to find Starscream," Ironhide said. "If we follow him, we could find and neutralize the rest of them."

"No," Prime said. "I won't risk an open confrontation. Not now. And ours was a fact-finding mission."

Ironhide looked back at Prime and made his manipulators into fists. "But Prime—"

"Barricade doesn't want to be found," Prowl said.

Prime added: "And if we hope that he may yet join us, we cannot provoke him."

"Understood," Ironhide said. He craned his head to look at the tyre-treads. "Having him on-side certainly would have helped, though."

Ratchet stood from Prowl. The micro-manipulators resocketed into Ratchet's form. "You're all set," he said.

Prowl said nothing but only stood. Staring at the trails of turf along with Ironhide.

Ironhide patted Prowl's shoulder a moment later. "I'm sorry, Prowl," he said. "I know you two were close."

* * *

**26,000 miles above Moscow, Russia.**

**Starscream.**

"This is Starscream on the emergency under-frequency, repeat, this is Starscream on the emergency under-frequency. Request confirmation. Soundwave, please confirm."

"Soundwave acknowledges."

"Inform Megatron immediately, Soundwave. I've acquired the human girl named 'Banes'. I'm en route back to the _Nemesis_. And, eh, Soundwave?"

"Query: Yes?"

"Have Thundercracker and Skywarp arrived?"

"Soundwave acknowledges."

"Good. Then we're almost ready."

"Soundwave requests explanation."

"Oh Soundwave. Don't worry your little head about me. I couldn't hurt an Insecticon..."

* * *

_**Continued...**_


	3. Soundwave

_**Author's Note**_: I almost didn't use the Twins in this story, but then reneged on myself. They appear in a small cameo in this instalment, and as our heroes travel to Mars for a certain distressing-or-maybe-not damsel, Skids and Mudflap take on a bigger role. Also, I've made more of Prowl than I initially planned on, but this isn't an entirely bad thing. The idea is that he's taken on a sort of strategy-tactics component of the First Lieutenant role left open by Jazz, which I always felt Ironhide took on in 'Revenge of the Fallen'. So we're playing fast and loose with the ranks, but hopefully not too much. Elsewhere, we've tried as consciously as possible to make the Decepticons group interplay mirror the Autobots'. There are arguably obvious reasons for this, but for my own part it was interesting to see how the bad guys arrive at decisions. Or, more properly, how Megatron arrives at decisions and how Shockwave and Soundwave become something like gutless yes-men...

* * *

**Mars.**

**The **_**Nemesis**_**.**

Starscream came in for landing at the humans 'Mach 1'. Skirting above the arid ferrous plains, twin contrails fuming out behind his jet form in sleek white clouds. When the _Nemesis_ registered on his proximity sensors, he slowed. The gaping slash in the hull on the aft port side was the target.

The wings contracted and folded back on themselves. The whole jet flipped onto its ventral side.

Starscream in robot form.

He landed in a low crouch and skidded forward a bit from the inertia.

And grunted dissatisfaction.

The cockpit on his chest slid open. Starscream angled forward, and the Banes girl tumbled out. Rumble followed, skittering its way towards Soundwave loitering in the corner. Out of the light.

Rolled for a moment and came to rest on her human palms and knees. Her hair hung in wet strands in front of her face. Starscream's sensors picked up an elevated heartbeat. High levels of something called estrogen coursing through her body. Her breath came in short and...vastly nervous gasps.

Her eyes locked on Starscream, then grew wide. And she started clutching at her throat. Gagging and gasping all at once. He suspected she was going to, as the idiom went, 'vomit'.

Starscream glanced to one side.

Soundwave, milling silently next to a collapsed I-beam, Rumble lounging on his shoulder like some quanta-parrot. Megatron further behind and lumbering forward.

"Put up the forcefield!" Starscream bellowed. "She's no good to us dead."

Soundwave complied. Waved one hand over a control console, its interface glowing dim and green in the hangar's penumbra. A moment later, a blue-white barrier sizzled into existence where the hull gash had been, then went invisible.

The human girl's gasping quieted in another moment.

Starscream crouched.

She fell back on her posterior and seemed to clamour away from him. Kept saying "Oh God, Oh God," and Starscream wondered if this was some primitive ritual.

A shadow fell across the girl.

Megatron.

He batted Starscream away with a spindly claw.

The Air Commander's optics narrowed and he slunk back. "As you wish," he merely said. "I have fulfilled my part of your plan, Master. What now?"

"Soundwave?"

Panels on either side of Soundwave's torso opened with a monotone pneumatic breath. Laserbeak came ambling out of one, stretching its micro-thin wings. Hovering over the Banes girl in a low circle. Like some vast predatory bird. Rumble followed and stalked her in a wide circle.

Megatron crouched behind her, his optics burning in greed and fascination. She clamoured away from him, too.

Starscream decided to be theatric and slam one clawed foot in front of her to stop her. His tibular tensors tightened, and the utmost phalangeal claws pulled up deck plating underneath them.

The eyes of five Decepticons, five of the fiercest warriors Megatron had brought up, were on the human Banes girl.

All she thought to say was, "What's going on?"

If Megatron had been a human he might have shrugged. Instead, he grasped her by her human waist and hoisted her up. Holding her in front of his optics like a slag-rat. His head, steely and glistening in the sepulchral gloom, wase still angled, halfly amazed. Perhaps repulsed.

"You don't seem surprised to see us. Are you not frightened?"

"A little," she said. "What. What do you want?"

He set her back down. Carefully.

"Everything," Megatron said. "But for right now, I'll settle for you."

Her breathing evened out. She swallowed and pursed her lips.

"Why are you doing this? I mean. What did I do?"

One of the slats over Megatron's optic angled and his head inclined. Ever so slightly. "You stood up to be counted with the enemy of Cybertron. Speck. And you're going to be punished for your crimes."

Then he turned away. Lumbering into the darkness.

Soundwave followed Megatron, matching his leader footstep-for-footstep, Rumble skittering up one side of him as he went. Starscream lingered. His optics stayed on her for a moment. Just a moment. Brief and not worth measuring, but when she noticed it, it seemed like forever.

He was studying her.

Robot facial expressions were lost on her. And maybe it was wishful thinking.

But. The jet that had kidnapped her. He looked sad. Or thoughtful, maybe.

_Thoughtful in the way people who tie people to railroad tracks usually look_.

Then Starscream turned abruptly and slunk away into the darkness.

He had noticed her. Noticing him.

She looked away. The gaping hole in the hull had been sealed with some invisible forcefield—straight out of one of Sam's Battlestar Galactica shows—so she could still see through.

Beyond the ship, a windstorm raged on the planet.

The hull creaked and groaned. Vaguely, she sighed.

_This is it. This is how you're going to die. Even a car crash would have meant more, but no._

_You, Mikaela, you're going to die because some giant metal death-bots are making a bargaining chip out of you._

_You're going to die because you're not important to them. Because you're not important enough to rescue._

She thought of Dorothy, and Aunt Em, and the twisting black cyclone that ravaged Kansas and sent Dorothy to a better place.

Sitting alone, huddled into herself for warmth that wasn't there, in the middle of the hangar. Mikaela sniffled.

A moment later, the tears came. She buried her head in her hands.

No one was coming for her.

No one knew she was here.

Outside, the wind howled.

* * *

**Earth.**

**Diego Garcia.**

This is William Lennox, bearing the bad news.

On the videoconference, Defence Secretary Keller on one screen. Chairman Morshower on the other.

"We have a situation that warrants an immediate debrief," Lennox said.

"Alright," Keller said. "What?"

"We received a report of Nonbiological activity outside Los Angeles. Specifically of the Decepticon variety."

Keller leaned forward. "Type?"

Lennox hesitated for a moment. "Aerial, sir."

"Status?"

"Gone," Lennox said. "We also think he took something."

Keller: "Like what? A person?"

"Yes," Lennox said. "We intercepted a call to the Orange County police department. The name they ran popped up on our Notice List. Mikaela Banes. Ring a bell?"

Keller looked dour. Looked down and started massaging his temples. "Does this warrant a military option, Glenn?"

"Mr Secretary, there's no question."

Lennox waited another moment. Looked utterly serious. Then: "We need to deploy the Autobots immediately, sir. We think it was Starscream."

Keller's face creased. "What the hell's a Starscream?"

"Second in command to Megatron, sir," Lennox said. "Sector Seven designated him NBE-6."

"Oh right," Keller said and sighed. "He's the one that turns into the F-22. So what's he doing kidnapping human girls?"

"She's Sam's girlfriend. The kid that killed NBE-1, she's dating him. She has no strategic value to them otherwise, and our only conclusion is that this is some kind of trap for the Autobots."

"And the Autobots know the danger?"

"One they can handle quite well. Sir."

Keller flung one hand up. Ran the other through slicked-back silver hair. Quieter: "Jesus." Pause. "Do we know where this, uh, this Starscream went?"

Morshower: "Satellite telemetry aims him at Mars. That's the best we can do."

Keller's eyes narrowed. The skin around them creased into crow's-feet.

"Alright. Lennox, tell the kid. Get your Autobots on this. And Will?"

"Sir."

"Keep it quiet. I don't want to see people looting Manhattan because of alien ultimatums again."

"Yes sir."

* * *

**Mars.**

**The **_**Nemesis**_**.**

Megatron sat slouched in his master's former throne, as before. Unlike before, though, he was flanked by Starscream and Skywarp. Shockwave and Soundwave lingered on the precipice, overlooking the tubular expanse along the _Nemesis_' vast and dank interior.

"Skywarp."

Steam curled away from Megatron in thin wisps and in the gloom his eyes seemed to burn brighter than ever. Dedicated perhaps. Hyperaware. Full of his usual rage.

Skywarp slunk forward and knelt before his master. One spindly claw grasping at the tank treads on Megatron's lower motivator.

_ Yes_, Skywarp thought. _Master. _

_For now._

His processor, ever of seditious pathways.

"What is your command, Mighty Megatron?"

"Go to Earth," Megatron said. And leaned forward.

"I am honoured, Master."

Megatron's vox growled. He flexed his tensors, kicked Skywarp across the chamber.

The Seeker landed with a harsh metallic crash against the far wall. Grunted as he got to one knee.

Megatron was suddenly over Skywarp. Growling. Steam and condensation still pouring off him. One claw clutched Skywarp's neck array and tightened. He looked back to Soundwave and the rest.

"You all know there's only one way to end this war. We must destroy the Autobots. Since all else has failed...we must lure them here. We must avenge our failures."

Shockwave's single yellow optic glowed to life. He merely said, "And Prime?"

Megatron looked back at Skywarp. Slowly. Released his grip, and the dark Seeker fell to a crouch.

"Prime's famed idealism will not save him. For once we're going to fight the Autobots without the interference of their beloved fleshling armies."

"A peerless plan, Master," Shockwave said, "The elimination of all possible threats."

"Yes." Then, "Get up, Skywarp."

"Master?"

"Go to Earth," Megatron growled. "Ingratiate yourself with Prime—give him a lie he'll believe. Then bring him here."

Megatron pulled his claw off Skywarp's neck array, pushing him away as he did.

Skywarp slunk away toward the hull again.

In the next moment, in a flash of blue-white energy, he was gone.

* * *

**Earth.**

**Princeton, New Jersey.**

This is Optimus Prime. And Sam Witwicky. Bumblebee and Ratchet and Prowl standing behind him.

Sam sitting on the ground, still and unmoving. A living corpse. His hands were motionless, palm-up, hanging limply. He was staring at the ground but not really staring at anything. Every few seconds his lips quivered.

He looked up.

"We have to get her."

Prime spoke first. His head inclined. Almost shook in minor disapproval. "Sam—"

Then Sam was standing. His face was red. And he was barking his rage at Prime. "We gotta stop em! They're gonna kill her!"

"Sam," Prime said again. "We will do what we can."

"He's right," Prowl said and stepped forward. "That's all we can offer you."

"And she might be dead already! You-you just wanna, you just wanna sit here and wait?"

"If she was dead," Prime said. "We would know by now."

Sam rans his hands through his hair. Let out a sigh that mixed with anguish. Started pacing.

He looked up the street and saw Ironhide—shaped like a truck—driving toward him. Behind, two Humvees.

"Subtle," Sam muttered.

Ironhide stopped. The door opened slowly, and out stepped Lennox.

"Sam," he said and his voice was soft and so very unlike Lennox, as he shook Sam's hand. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, I know," Sam said and put seriousness into his voice. "What're we doin about it?"

Lennox looked back. Behind him, Epps gave a minor shrug. Lennox went back to Sam. "We're working on it."

In the next moment Sam's ears exploded. Or felt like it.

One giant boom that sounded all around him. He boxed his ears on reflex, and Lennox and Epps did the same.

Sam turned back to Prime and the Autobots.

They were parted in the centre now. Staring at the giant-ass robot cowering among them. Sam recognized it well. Twin jets on its back. A glinting bronze-coloured cockpit shell in the middle of the chest. Angular shoulder plates. Lumbering arms and reflexive avian legs. Vaguely simian, all things considered. And it seems to slouch. Looked sad, or outclassed. Or terrified.

This one was in black and...why would an alien robot be coloured purple? He drove the thoughts from his mind. Kept his eyes on the jet

"Help me," it said, in a fractured and uneven voice. It raised a thin claw toward Prime. "Megatron...must be stopped."

* * *

**Later:**

Ratchet was with Skywarp on the far side of the field. Partially to run injury diagnostics. Partially to keep an entirely suspicious eye on the entirely suspicious Seeker.

Optimus was pacing alongside an embankment, hidden by a long and tall row of pines. Prowl and Ironhide stood a metre or twelve away. To the extent they could convey it, none of them, especially Optimus, looked pleased. Or entirely aware.

Yes, there was a distinct...ethereal feel to the past few cycles. Something had changed. The war certainly had been going on for ages, but still. Something was different. Megatron's savagery had increased. Their methods were fiercer. Their goals insatiable.

And now, Skywarp had come amongst the Autobots, proclaiming Megatron's insanity.

Which was really nothing new. Certainly Skywarp had shown up preaching to the choir, but there was something else in his broken vox. An iota, buried deep and unfathomable, of truth.

Even if it was a trick--if Skywarp was a mole and a poorly-disguised one at that--it couldn't be overlooked.

Megatron had come back from hiding.

Optimus let out a thin and mechanical sigh. Looked skyward.

"I don't trust him," Ironhide said. "I never have."

Prowl was silent for a moment. Then: "If it's true—"

"If," Ironhide cautioned.

"—And if Megatron's up to something, we can't afford to overlook it. Even if the message comes from Skywarp."

"He had to send Skywarp," Prime said. "Megatron knows we wouldn't believe anyone else."

Ironhide's optics rolled in their sockets. "We barely believed Skywarp."

Prime looked up. Ratchet and Sideswipe rumbled across the field in vehicle form, Bumblebee and the Twins behind them.

"Nevertheless," Prime said. "This is thin pretext for a fight, even for Megatron."

"We cannot trust any of them!" Ironhide barked and clenched one steel manipulator.

"But we must retrieve the girl," Prowl said. Folded his arms over his chest. "Before Megatron kills her."

Ironhide snorted. "When did we become the humans' safety net?"

Prime pointed a cautionary phalange at Ironhide. "We swore to protect the humans, Ironhide. Mikaela and Sam saved us. Twice. We should be willing to save them." A pause. "Prowl is right."

"The situation is that simple?" Ironhide asked. "And what if Starscream did take her to Mars? What then? We barge into the _Nemesis_, guns blazing, and take her back? Against Megatron's untold hordes?"

Three metres away, Bumblee's headlamps blinked wildly and his radio barked to life. Through the static there came a single soundbyte:_ "You bet your sweet bippy."

* * *

_

_**Continued...**  
_


	4. Shockwave

_**Author's Note:**_ the presence of the Nodus Gordii Mountains is a shameless nod to Alan Moore's seminal graphic novel _Watchmen_, where the superhuman Dr Manhattan reflects on the nature of humanity at those samesuch mountains. I'm told they've been renamed since 1987, but since this is a Multiverse in which we traipse, Nodus Gordii can stay. Elsewhere, the Decepticons we used turned out to be those which were part of Starscream's Brigade--the splinter Decepticon faction from the G1 episode of the same name. tells me that all of them, except Dead End, are of a flight-possessing/helicopter variety--which made writing the battle somewhat easier. So we see mostly a Decepticon view of things in this instalment, though we do get some of Ironhide's thoughts as well. Shockwave particularly was a joy to write; I suppose the Nazi parallels are lame and unavoidable, but my first thought as far as frame of reference was concerned ran to Joseph Goebbels, the stalwart and unassailably flesh-crawling Reichsminister who stood by Hitler until the very end. I've thus tried to cast Shockwave as less loyal to "the mission" (see Starscream) and more personally loyal to Megatron--ultimately more dangerous and more unbalanced as a result of that. At any rate, I hope I haven't taken too many egregious liberties with Shockwave's character. This instalment also allowed me to approach the Transformers from a slightly more savage angle. I can't write fight scenes to save my life, but I do hope that a certain destructive angle gets conveyed here. Put another way, when they're not on Earth and don't have humans to protect or things to hide behind, Cybertronian wars get real ugly, real fast. Hopefully, not too fast though. Happy Reading!

* * *

**Mars.**

The last time Bumblebee found himself transited through a Space Bridge, the Decepticon defector Jetfire had flung him into Egypt's vast and bleak desert.

Skywarp had no such faults in his hardware.

The Space Bridge blinked to life as a broad circle, in two dimensions, at the base of the Nodus Gordii Mountains. No flinging or fault technology here. Skywarp was old, at least as old as Bumblebee and Prime, but he had maintained himself.

Not being on Earth to get stuck in one of the mausoleums they called 'museums' helped.

Skywarp materialised first, in a low crouch. The black and cerulean panels on his armour reflected the Space Bridge's electric energy brilliantly. He stood and through the electric haze, beheld the sadly familiar Martian landscape.

_Home_, he thought with some dissatisfaction.

_Home to little more than refugees on a barge._

Skywarp's optics narrowed and he formed his facial tensors into a frown. The action was familiar—dissatisfaction, annoyance, anger were definitions of his existence—but the word was a human construction.

_ You homo sapiens and your feelings._

He looked over one shoulder.

Prime materialised next, standing straight, his head looking forward with some lofty, indefinable arrogance.

Then Ironhide. Whirling his guns out and willing to shoot. As usual.

Ratchet. Bumblebee. Sideswipe. Prowl. The Twins, Skids and Mudflap, unusually silent.

_They are as hatchlings_, Skywarp reminded himself. _In the human idiom, little more than teen-agers with wide eyes and flights of fancy, eager to pick up a weapon and fire it at the nearest offender of their high expectations. Or their vastly abrasive personalities._

Skywarp thought for a moment about turning around, right here and right now, and cutting their heads off.

_ But that would serve no purpose, now would it?_

_We need Prime to bear glorious witness..._

The electric sizzle of the Space Bridge faded away, leaving only the transported bots standing in the middle of an arid plain. The winds of a sub-zero Martian winter blazed around them.

"Scenic," Prowl said. Shunted his arm into its usual gun; twin cannons flipped up and over his shoulders.

"Autobots," Prime said and waved one manipulator in a slight circle, "Recon."

"Nothing," Ratchet said. The most technically astute Autobot, Skywarp knew, though by no means the most technically sophisticated, was Ratchet. Battlefield Medic was a demanding position. Necessary. Gruesome as well, but it demanded a great deal of technical acumen. Which Ratchet appeared to have in spades.

Skywarp respected that.

So he watched with a discerning and perhaps even jealous eye as Ratchet's manipulators hovered over the Martian waste lands, scanning for a trap, a subterranean explosive. Or, and this amused Skywarp more, Scorponok perhaps.

He allowed a brief chortle of amusement through his vocoder, and turned away.

"You won't find anything," Skywarp said, glaring into the distance.

Ironhide had been pointing his cannons at an outcropping. He turned to Skywarp and said, "You're so sure?"

"Yes," Skywarp said. "How often do you think Megatron receives visitors?"

Ironhide appeared to shrug for a moment. He relinquished his cannons to stationary holds on his arms and gave up reconnaissance.

Skywarp had his optics trained on the horizon.

His shoulders tensed, his vocoder let out a small hiss, when he sensed Prime standing next to him.

"You don't trust me."

"No," Prime said. Didn't seem terribly bothered by the admission.

"That's valid," Skywarp said. "You have no reason to trust anyone anymore. Our home is dead. Our fortunes have become entwined with the human hive. And for what? So we can hide in a dead planet, waiting for death or obsolescence to take us over?"

Prime's optics skittered in their sockets. Moved around with manic vagueness. Thinking hard, perhaps, about Skywarp's war-forged ennui.

"It pains me to see our race reduced to a few dozen warlords, Optimus. It pains me to think Cybertron's glory shall never be as it once was. It pains me to think that all this started because a primordial evil deigned to control Megatron, and deigned to control the universe." Skywarp paused. Then added, with a sad sort of wistfulness: "I suppose beings start wars over far less sensible things. Killing for a swatch of land makes as much sense as anything."

Then Prime saw his opportunity.

"Come with us," he said.

Skywarp angled his head toward Prime. His optics narrowed, his facial tensors changed, severe and annoyed.

"Yes, let's just all do what we want."

* * *

**The **_**Nemesis**_**.**

The human girl named Banes had been on the _Nemesis_ for little less than forty-eight Earth hours. In that time, Megatron had tasked Shockwave with the monitoring and upkeep of his guest. It was a natural expression of Shockwave's talents. Combined both his distaste for organics with an ever-reaching, ever-searching processor.

The _Nemesis_, too, might have been a wrecked vessel, a corpse of a once-great empire, now reduced to lifelessness on a dead planet, but it still was eons beyond the humans' wildest scientific imaginings. The engines and machines Megatron had used to power his war on Cybertron, Shockwave had retrofitted to fit his new task.

The guardian of Cybertron allowed himself the delight of torturing her.

As it turned out, her resistance was considerable.

In the forty-eight human hours she had spent in the company of her captors, both of Mikaela Banes' legs were broken. She had gone temporarily blind in one eye from certain ocular degeneracy treatments Shockwave had administered—wanting to test the limits of human vision in a comparative study with the remains of Long Haul. He had deduced a severe blood-borne disease in the girl, and cured it with such minimal effort that it barely warranted his attention in the first place. She had suffered severe inhalation damage; one lung had been collapsed after a particularly severe Nitrogen Induction experiment—only to be reconstituted with some tricky work by Rumble.

Rumble, who was no Frenzy, to be sure, still had his merits. He served as Shockwave's de-facto assistant in the Banes girl's 'upkeep'.

_Upkeep is such an ugly word_, Shockwave thought. Why not call it exactly what it was?

Torture. Certainly. Extermination—hardly—for extermination implied some kind of line-wide destruction. Death. Wholesale. And Shockwave had been through that once already.

In a way, he surmised, this was better than extermination.

This human, this girl. This insect. Had stood to be counted with the enemy of everything Megatron and the Decepticons believed. Everything they had worked for.

Punishment was natural. Deserved.

One of his manipulators thinned into a scalpel the size of her hand, and lowered to her abdomen.

She had passed out from the shock some hours ago. Even still, death was not worth the risk.

They needed her alive.

Shockwave summoned Rumble.

The tiny little contraption slithered out of the dark on impossibly skeletal legs. He came to stop just before the Banes girl's unconscious, slumped, body, and jerked both his arms back. One changed into a reflex-syringe, a thin and gleaming metallic spike that he drove into her neck. Delivering anesthesia enough for the hypertrophs in Cybertron's Great Deep to feel. She would not wake for hours.

Rumble laid his other spindly hand on her forehead and craned his neck to one side.

His tiny optics burned bright.

Shockwave eased the scalpel toward her abdomen.

The operation was cut short by a blaring alarm. The hangar turned a bright red. The subsystem emergency lights flickered to life as the ship went into automatic lockdown.

Shockwave stood away from the human girl and stormed out of the hangar.

Twelve metres away and three levels up, Megatron stood at the precipice of what had been the Fallen's incubation throne. In their return to the _Nemesis_, Megatron reappropriated it.

Shockwave catapulted himself up to the dais and was at Megatron's side a moment later. Staring out through a gash in the hull at the arid Martian waste.

Megatron's shoulders heaved and when he spoke, steam poured from him in great curling volumes. His body ached with the fires of war. He laid one claw on the hull plating.

Shockwave said nothing, giving his master silence. He turned and stared at the _Nemesis_' great, dank interior.

Starscream and Thundercracker landed in unison at the edge of the platform. Both in a low crouch, their arm tensors clenched into the floor plating.

"Master," Starscream said. "Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but we've encountered a vergence on the long-range sensors. The Autobots must be coming for the girl!"

Soundwave came gliding down from the darkness the rafters afforded.

Merely said, "What is your command?"

Megatron looked Soundwave square in his optics. Clenched one gleaming claw and formed the other into his lobstrosity of a fusion cannon.

"Decepticons," he said in a bestial and seductive voice. "Attack."

Soundwave looked back at Starscream. In addition to Thundercracker and Shockwave, several more Decepticons had gathered on the platform. All stretching for a chance to see their Master. All champing eager to see battle.

Glorious battle.

"Vortex, Blitzwing, Laserbeak, Rumble, Ratbat, Swindle, Dead End—Attack."

Silently, without word or complaint. With, Shockwave surmised, grateful processors, they went forward.

The force-field covering the hole in the hull dissipated, and they went forth. Blitzwing led the way, changing into his helicopter form as he went. Then Vortex and Swindle, also helicopters. Dead End, slinking through the hole, his optics furtive and roving, his armour shining in the twilight. Laserbeak and Ratbat next, flying side by side with perfect synchronicity. Rumble hung on Laserbeak's claws.

Megatron watched them go.

Starscream looked back at Shockwave and Soundwave. "And them?"

Megatron pushed Starscream aside. Pointed one phalangeal claw at Shockwave.

"Protect the girl," he said.

Then he was in jet mode and exploding out of the Nemesis. Thundercracker and Starscream followed, forming symmetrical con-trails behind him.

* * *

**The Nodus Gordii Mountains.**

They were in a loose convoy—what the humans called a Flying V—barrelling across the plains. Skywarp was at the head, flying a thousand feet above them. Prime led on the ground; Ironhide on one side, Ratchet on the other. Prowl and Bumblebee behind Ironhide; the Twins and Sideswipe behind Ratchet.

In the distance, or so Ironhide's long-range sensors told, the _Nemesis_ lay waiting. And with it, the Banes girl. And certain doom.

It was every bit the case that they were going to their deaths. Ironhide took the opportunity to tell Prime this before they left Earth. "Every time we face them, we face death," Prime had said. And that was that.

It was the case that Megatron was a monster. And his lieutenants were worse.

Soundwave and Shockwave couldn't be blamed for their lack of initiative. Cycles of servitude had gutted their courage and turned them into little more than sycophants and psychopaths. Whatever potential they had was wasted under Megatron. Destroyed by his hatred.

Starscream, oddly, garnered Ironhide's respect. Both knew it. Starscream lacked what the humans called 'spine' but he made up for it in other ways. He was crafty, at the very least. Imaginative. Spry and always quick to attack. Summarily always quick to flee if things didn't go exactly the way he wanted.

Starscream was worse than Megatron. He had stood by for millennia and watched Megatron raze entire worlds. Had allowed the death of billions simply because he was too frightened or too unwilling to do anything else. Now that Megatron was back among the living, matters were worse. Megatron would keep slaughtering. Keep coveting. Keep dominating.

If he had to kill every living thing in the galaxy.

Ironhide could deal with that. Megatron's ambition could be stopped—certainly it had been before.

But Starscream would still be there. Shockwave. Soundwave. Skywarp. They would all clamour for leadership. And they would all keep killing.

Until there'd be nothing left to kill.

Ironhide's sensors picked up an atmospheric disturbance and transmitted it to Skywarp.

Skywarp transmitted back an entirely curt thank-you and increased speed.

Prime compensated and worried for a moment that Skywarp's duplicity would play itself out now. If it did, they would not reach the Nemesis for days. By then, Mikaela would be dead. To say nothing of the Autobots themselves, whose very survival rested on Skywarp.

Ratchet's sensors picked up the disturbance at the same time as Ironhide. He pinged into Prime's cab radio on the open channel. So they could all hear it.

"Something is coming."

"Agreed. Autobots, be ready."

Sideswipe converted into robot mode in a single contorting motion and began skating across the landscape. He slid out the swords on his arms and used them for leverage and speed.

Bumblebee thought remotely that Sideswipe resembled something Sam used to call Short Track racers. Humans who skated on razor blades around a circle of ice. An odd convention.

Next to Bee, the Twins were speeding along at a leisurely clip as well. The whole convoy seemed to be north of the 100 miles per hour range—sensibly, too, Skids guessed, if they wanted to make the Nemesis in any kind of time.

Privately, Skids wanted to see it.

Wanted to stroll up to Megatron and punch his dumbass old face.

That'd show him.

Skids sped up with this happy fantasy in his processor.

Unfortunately for Skids, he never saw it coming.

None of them did.

The Decepticons came all at once.

Blitzwing blew out of the clouds, followed by Swindle and Vortex. Dead End crested a distant ridge and came speeding toward Bumblebee at an astonishing speed. Then Megatron, Starscream and Thundercracker blew out of the clouds and fired on Prime.

Skywarp veered away and flipped into robot mode, landing in a shallow crater. He opened fire on Ironhide in the next moment.

Blitzwing fired off three shots in the course of his landing. One slammed into the soil and threw up a small cloud. Good diversion, so he couldn't be disappointed about that. The other shot landed between Ratchet and Sideswipe and sent both reeling away from the impact in opposite directions. Ratchet contorted into robot form as the force flung him away, and landed in a skid. Pointing his arm cannon wildly into the air. Momentarily panicked.

The third shot slammed right into Skids' hood and blew the engine out. He tried to convert to robot mode in the instant before the missile impact, but it didn't take. A gruesome concatenation of twisted metal, dead Autobot and leaking energon came to rest at the edge of the canyon.

Megatron immediately went for Prime.

Starscream picked off Ratchet from the air, blowing half his shoulder out before landing in front of the medic in robot form and beating him with his bare hands.

Thundercracker went for Prowl.

There was no cover. No rocks or trees to hide behind. The canyon was half a kilometre east, and too deep to afford cover. Plunging in would've only meant death.

Blitzwing—and now Vortex and Swindle standing on either side of him—was firing at Ratchet and Sideswipe in an open field—the rest were occupied with Megatron and the Seekers. To any lesser Decepticon, to any lesser being, this was suicide. To Blitzwing?

Sport.

Prowl and Ironhide switched out with Sideswipe and Ratchet, and took forward point. At the same time Vortex went for Ironhide, Swindle went for Ratchet. Blitzwing focused ahead.

Sideswipe charged forward and for a moment Blitzwing thought the Autobot's style resembled that of Bonecrusher—may he rest in pieces.

A few metres away, Starscream was pounding on Ratchet.

Blitzwing knelt and cocked his rifle again. Took the time to aim right at Sideswipe's chest plating.

_ I'll blow the spark right out of you, Autobot._

Blitzwing was so focused on Sideswipe. So focused that—

He jerked back and sparks exploded from his shoulder. He looked down with a distant, uncomprehending look at his arm and his energy cannon, bleeding energon on the ground. If he'd been a human he might have frowned. He looked up. In the microsecond before his death, Blitzwing saw Prime in the distance. Prime turning away from his fight with Megatron and blowing Blitzwing's arm off. Prime turning back to Megatron without hesitation.

Blitzwing stared uncomprehendingly at his own arm, mangled and sparking, dead on the ground.

Then Sideswipe was on him. Jamming a sword in his face and forcing it through.

Blitzwing's processor fluttered and stunted, the flow of information halted by the piece of metal now bisecting the circuits.

Megatron's finest triple-changer fell dead to the ground a moment later.

Sideswipe pulled the sword out and kicked Blitzwing's crackling, bleeding head aside.

"Not fine anymore are you," he said and turned back for Swindle.

Starscream saw Sideswipe charging toward him and abandoned Ratchet, exploding--escaping--into the sky as usual. The Air Commander had done a number on Ratchet: his left arm lay twisted on the ground. What was left of his shoulder sparked and crackled behind buckled and blackened armour. Starscream had ripped off his buzzsaw and forced it into his abdomen. Sideswipe suspect Ratchet was leaking energon. Profusely.

But Ratchet had a trick or two left.

He caught Sideswipe's attention long enough to yell, "Get down!"

Sideswipe ducked, barely avoiding the stream of fire from Ratchet's arm-gatling. Looked back and saw Swindle's head explode. Ratchet helped Sideswipe up, saying "He almost had you."

In the distance, Vortex was still matching Ironhide's volleys. Suddenly he was the last chopper in the Decepticon army. Vortex was built on the Blackout model. He was huge, well-armed, particularly vicious. Yet his peculiar rage and stocky style made up for his slowness. He kicked Ironhide away and fired a blanket of missiles at Sideswipe and Ratchet before they could get close.

He was running out of options. Converting to vehicle mode and flying off left him too open for attack and he couldn't take six Autobots on by himself.

_ Keep firing._

So he did.

Vortex dove for Ironhide again and suffered two shots to the chest for his trouble. The fight continued.

Bumblebee tried to sneak up on Thundercracker—who had taken the opportunity to wail on Prowl—but found himself waylaid by Dead End, who had sped in and knocked Bee off his feet at the very last moment. Dead End twisted out of vehicle mode and slunk toward Bee with a mad glint in his optics.

"Thought I'd take one from the Barricade book."

Bumblebee's radio hissed static, then said in a tinny voice: "Very cute." Then he started firing.

Dead End avoided each shot expertly, flipping and twisting around as a rhombodroid might. A page from the Rumble book, Bee recalled. He perched himself on Bee's shoulders and started slashing at Bee's shoulder cannons. Bee flipped over himself trying to get Dead End off. No avail. Bumblebee's shoulder cannons were now completely gone. Stripped off, ripped off more appropriately, by Dead End's greedy and foul style. Bee reached one manipulator over his shoulder. The other behind at his waist, grabbing Dead End's tensors. Bee pulled and oddly Dead End came off with ease. The Decepticon's eyes were burning red and energon was leaking from his mouth. Worked up. At the very least. Bee filled him full of explosive ordnance a moment later, and flung the flaming hulk away.

Near the precipice to the Unending Canyon, Megatron was fighting Prime in his usual manner.

Rage.

Megatron had dive-bombed Prime, converting to robot mode and flipping over Prime as he landed. Firing successive shots right into Prime's chest.

Prime immediately dove for him, both energon blades pointed at Megatron's chest.

The Decepticon leader merely sidestepped and kicked Prime while he was down. Readied his fusion cannon at Prime's mid-section. The mistake was waiting for Prime to stand, because he immediately pivoted and slashed at the fusion cannon's outstretched blade. The kinetic follow-through forced Megatron away—the fusion cannon discharged into the distance and struck Thundercracker, still engaged with Prowl—and Prime jabbed one blade, glowing with impossible orange heat into Megatron's elbow. With his other manipulator Prime bent the joint back on itself and kicked Megatron for good measure. Megatron brought his free arm around and struck Prime across the face.

Prime took the blow and readied his ion rifle. Megatron turned and kicked Prime in the face, as he had done in the Earth forest. This time, Prime stayed down. Long enough for Megatron to fix his cannoned arm rightly and take aim at his prone enemy.

"What a simple mind," he barked and pressed the pointed end of his lobstrosity against Prime's head. "You can't even face me!"

He entertained a terrible thought for a moment. That Prime was drawing him in. But he dismissed it summarily. Prime was never that subtle.

Then Megatron flew backwards, kicked through the air by Prime and a surprising show of effort.

Megatron stood and willed the pain away. Pain was for lesser creatures.

He fired an explosive round into the nearest Autobot—it so happened to be Prowl, who fell like a sack of tin.

Megatron lumbered toward Prime again.

The battle raged around them.

Ironhide was still engaged with Vortex.

Starscream still remained in the skies; he circled the carnage in a low circle and sniped at Bumblebee every few moments.

Skywarp and Thundercracker had holed up behind the corpse of Swindle and traded fire with the cowering Autobots.

Prowl and Ratchet were all but crippled, crawling toward Bumblebee and firing intermittently at the Seekers.

The ruse had worked. Bringing the Autobots to Mars had worked. They had come to their deaths.

In the distance, Prime was hunched over the flaming wreckage that was once Skids.

Bumblebee and Ratchet had piled Dead End's corpse on top of Blitzwing's and were using the two as cover against Laserbeak and Ratbat and Rumble.

Megatron growled. Teeming with rage at the idea of finally killing Prime.

He brought his fusion cannon up, trained it on Prime's back.

Then felt a stinging in his legs.

He looked down and recognized the tiny, petulant Autobot shooting at him. Mudflap, Skids' extant partner, firing at Megatron's legs and shouting obscenities.

Vaguely, Megatron thought of Jazz.

_"You want a piece of me?! You want a piece?!"_

_ No. I want two._

Megatron ran the little flea through with his energy blade.

Then he fired at Prime.

The remains of Skid, along with the fusion cannon's customary incendiary payload, exploded across Prime's scapular armour and sent him reeling.

Megatron formed his arm back into its manipulator and looked around.

Ironhide had taken up residency with Bumblebee and Ratchet behind the first wave's corpses. Soundwave's pets were doing an admirable job holding them off.

"Decepticons," Megatron barked and waved skyward. "Withdraw!"

Then they were in the air, blasting back toward the _Nemesis_.

Bumblebee was limping, badly, and Vortex had ripped off one of Ironhide's cannons. Ratchet and Prowl lay maimed, but alive, behind the corpses of Blitzwing and Swindle. The Twins were dead.

The Decepticons had won this round.

Prime stared at Megatron's flight-mode, a dark spot fading into the rust-orange horizon.

"Next time, then."

* * *

**The **_**Nemesis**_**.**

Shockwave was crouched in the corner, or sitting, more appropriately, when the Banes girl stirred finally. Megatron's dutiful was in many ways the exemplar Decepticon. Loyal to a fault—weren't they all. Stunningly ruthless. Stunningly quiet. Shockwave occupied every sinister superlative in the book. He had been with Megatron since the beginning.

To be sure, so had Starscream. But Shockwave scorned the Air Commander.

Starscream didn't have the heart for the mission. He was an opportunist, certainly. An admirable trait among the Decepticons. But he was a coward and everyone knew it. Starscream would never take complete control because he would never engage any situation unless complete victory were guaranteed.

It came as little surprise to Shockwave, then, watching the battle on the viewscreen, to see Starscream flee the battle so soon. Even more suprising to see him rip off Ratchet's arm and beat him with it. That was a remarkable show of strength.

Shockwave's single eye, gleaming yellow, brightened. In lieu of facial tensors or anything resembling some emotional core, it was the closest approximation to hatred he could manifest.

He left cowardice to Starscream. Hatred was Megatron's. Loyalty was Shockwave's business.

Very soon he would have to save Megatron from Starscream's inevitable duplicity.

Starscream was always trying something.

_When that day comes, and my Master commands it, I will be ready._

He heard the buzzing of the emergency under-frequency in his processor and tapped in. Megatron came on, his vox heavy and disjointed.

"Shockwave!"

"Yes, Master, what is your command?"

"Victorious--heavily damaged--ortex dead--indle--oo--tarscre--e ready--"_  
_

Ahead of him, the Banes girl stirred. Made an imperceptible human moan and woke from her anaesthetic unconsciousness. She wiped a strand of hair from her face and looked around. Groaned when she realized she was still on the _Nemesis_. She tried standing and screamed in pain—which Shockwave denoted as a particularly pleasing sound—when she remember her legs were broken. As it was she started pulling herself into the ray of light that shone through the gash in the hull.

Shockwave cocked his head to one side. Stood and walked into the light.

She stopped when she saw him towering over her. Tried in vain to crawl the other way. She was hyperventilating again. Possibly in shock.

Shockwave crouched over her and picked her up between spindly phalangeal tensors. His single yellow optic burned bright for a moment.

"We haven't much time," Shockwave said. "Tell me about the one that killed Megatron. Your human familiar. Where would one find him?"

She started sobbing, which turned into babbling, which begat tears and more sobbing.

He shook her and that seemed to clear it up for the moment.

"Prince. Prince. Princeton," she said. Babbled. Wiped the tears streaming down her face.

Shockwave set her down. Panels in the floor, in the centre of the light shining through the hull, slid out and covered her at the waist and knees.

"Our science is centuries beyond human measure," he said. "Your legs will heal in six seven decimal three two seconds. At that point, I shall return you to Earth and you will deliver your human paramour to me. Let us hope he is as durable as you."

* * *

**_Continued..._**


	5. Skywarp

**The Moon.**

**Starscream.**

After defeating the Autobots on the Nemesis' front steps, badly, he had to add, Megatron had sent Starscream ahead. Scout Earth, the Lord of Cybertron had said. Lie in wait for our signal. Be ready.

He couldn't resent Megatron for it. Or more appropriately, did not wish to. For once.

Starscream was finally being given a place in the new order.

Ahead of Shockwave. Ahead of Soundwave.

His star was finally rising.

His hour come round at last.

It was, as they said, about damned time.

Crouched in the centre of what the humans called the Mare Tranquillitatis, Starscream bent down and clutched the thin and gleaming silver plaque between two spindly claws.

"Here Men From the Planet Earth Set Foot Upon The Moon July 1969 AD. We Came In Peace For All Mankind."

His facial tensors tightened and he looked up at the Earth, a mottled cerulean orb frozen against the blackness.

And crushed the steel plaque.

Starscream cast it aside. Then he blasted into the sky, leaving a dim grey shroud of lunar detritus in his wake. Twisted into jet form, and was gone.

His long range sensors already picked up Megatron and the others, rushing toward the Earth with the same intent.

_Yes_, he processed.

Things were about to change.

* * *

**Mars.**

**The **_**Nemesis**_**.**

Megatron blasted into the hangar lazily, drunkenly, as if he'd been utterly bested in battle. In tank form he skidded onto the main deck and exploded through a series of support columns. Contorted into robot form in the throes of his violent landing and stood in a single, heaving move.

Twelve metres away, Soundwave hovered in the darkness, just out of the beam of light coming through the ceiling. Shockwave was crouched over the Banes' girl—limp and unconscious.

Megatron's vox rumbled and his entire form seemed to shudder and heave. If he'd been human, it might've been a deep breath.

"Bring her," he said and turned around.

Skywarp and Thundercracker had landed and stood, side-by-side, awaiting orders.

Megatron pointed a spindly phalangeal claw toward Shockwave and his unconscious human pet."Take them to Earth! Thundercracker, with me. Soundwave?"

"What is your command?"

"Return to orbit above their planet," Megatron said. "That is where you do the most good."

Then Megatron exploded out of the hangar again, followed swiftly by Thundercracker.

A thousand miles above the Nodus Gordii Mountains, his optics auto-zoomed on the remaining Autobots, still scattered among the corpses of Blitzwing and the rest.

And his vox rumbled again.

"Master?" Thundercracker

After a moment, Megatron increased speed. Merely said, "There will be no one to stop us this time."

* * *

**Earth.**

**Washington, D.C.**

Lennox, en route to D.C. aboard an A-10, was in teleconference with Chairman Morshower and Defence Secretary Keller.

Keller's aged forehead smoothed, as did the crows-feet around his eyes when Morshower told him the latest satellite trajectories. "You said what?"

"The Nonbiological we tracked toward Mars yesterday is coming back. You should have the Hubble readouts by now, Mr Secretary."

"I do," Keller said. "Damn thing stopped right in front of the lens. He wants us to know he's coming."

"We think we know where he's headed," Morshower said. "Colorado Springs is confirming it as we speak."

"Where?"

"Washington," Morshower said. "These Decepticons are coming right for us."

Keller sat back in his chair, his face suddenly very pale. Haggard. But not entirely without plan. "You're sure," he said.

"That's affirm, sir." Morshower said.

"The question," Lennox cut in, "is what do we do? The Autobots are off-planet, and I'd bet my paygrade that Starscream's bringing the rest of his friends with him."

Keller and Morshower were silent for a moment.

"Where's the boy?" Morshower asked. "Witwicky?"

"He's at the White House," Keller said. "President's briefing him personally. Imagine being told that hostile alien robots killed the love of your life."

Lennox frowned. "She's dead?"

"We don't know."

Morshower's phone rang. Lennox and Keller waited for him to answer. And when his face darkened and his posture slackened, Lennox knew something was wrong.

"Sir?"

Morshower looked back at the screens, one with Keller's face on it and the other with Lennox's.

Keller's eyes narrowed. "What is it, Glenn?"

Somber, he said, "I just got word from the National Park Service, of all the places. There's a forty foot robot standing on the Arlington Memorial Bridge."

Lennox's eyes widened. "What?" Surreptitious, he added, "Sir?"

Keller frowned. Merely said, "Get everyone."

Morshower looked at Lennox. "How soon can you land, Will?"

"Ten minutes."

"We haven't got that long. Make it sooner."

Lennox merely said, "Sir." And his screen went black.

Morshower saw that Keller already had a phone cradled between his head and shoulder. To Morshower, he said, "Glenn, you get your NEST people down there right now."

Keller's screen went black.

Morshower was already on the wire to the National Guard.

* * *

**The Arlington Memorial Bridge.**

**Starscream.**

He had twisted into robot mode a mile above the city and shot down a full wing of would-be attackers on his descent.

Identify myself, he thought. Indeed.

And he had also caused a massive pile-up once he landed. He merely hovered to the deck and waited for a moment before finally settling with an odd mechanical slouch on the DC side of the bridge. One of their human SUVs, barrelling toward him, executed a hasty evasive—it ended up flipping the guardrail and taking a header into the river. But aside from that, and aside from a collection of smashed up autos and vainly fleeing humans, it had been problem-free.

One of them, a hefty woman that looked as if she could fit three of the Banes girl inside, took the most time fleeing. He plucked her from something she called "The Jag" and held her a human foot form his optic. Inspecting her with the scrupulous eye and precision of Shockwave himself.

He let out a tinny chuckle at that.

And tossed her likewise into the river.

He crouched, calm and avian, atop the smashed green auto that for some reason read "Jaguar" on its boot.

And waited.

* * *

**Mars.**

**The Nodus Gordii Mountains.**

Prime and the rest of the Autobots had done, for the most part, an admirable job of putting themselves back together. Ironhide's arm cannon's reattached easily—the same could be said for Prowl's shoulder cannons and torso platings. Bumblebee had walked off his limp. Ratchet had even reattached his own arm, its full and former glory restored.

Yet here they were.

Ironhide crouched on an outcropping near the mountainous upswell and rested his chin on a supporting manipulator.

Prime looked into the sky, and his processor opened the emergency underfrequency.

Please, he thought. Let this work.

_Skywarp_, he transmitted. _Skywarp come in._

On Earth, en route to Washington DC with Shockwave and the unconscious Banes girl in his charge, Skywarp slowed in midflight. In his cockpit, the girl made a feeble half-aware sound, and fell back into blissful unawareness. He replied to Prime's call.

(What do you want?)

_ Megatron is going to kill them all. You know this._

(I intend to be there for it, Prime. You cannot sway me)

_ I don't intend to sway you from murder, Skywarp. I intend to help you._

(This should be rich)

_ Bring us home, Skywarp._

(Give me a reason, you war criminal)

_ Megatron will not honour his deals with anyone, least of all you. What do you owe him?_

(You think I serve Megatron out of blackmail?)

_ You're stronger than that._

(I serve, Prime, because I choose to. It is my honour to fight next to the Lord of Cybertron)

_ Is it? Does he honour you?_

(I do not require honour)

_ And so you remain unappreciated. You could do so much more. For yourself and for our race._

(Recruit others, Prime. I cannot be convinced by mere rhetoric)

_Does it bother you, then, that once he conquers Earth, he'll give more and more power to Shockwave than he will to you? Or Soundwave. Or Starscream. Especially Starscream._

(Stop this right now, Prime)

_ There won't be anything left for you, Skywarp. No worlds to conquer. No death to deal._

There followed an interminable silence on the frequency. Prime waited patiently. Then it came.

A blue-white circle of energy crackled into existence at the mountainous upswell, five metres from Ironhide. It contained Skywarp, in a crouch, who merely stood, and said, "Hurry. And if you tell anyone, I'll kill you myself."

The Autobots gathered around him.

And in the next flash, they were gone.

* * *

**Washington, D.C.**

**The Arlington Memorial Bridge.**

Defense Secretary Keller and Chairman Morshower were committing a particularly grand subversion of national security by taking his motorcade down to the Bridge, just to see the forty foot robot the Secret Service had told him was perched on the remains of an 03 S-class Jaguar and staring at the people around him like some observant predatory bird.

Sam Witwicky, in whose hands formerly rested the fate of humankind--the same such hands that had shoved the Allspark into Megatron's chest, and later, the Matrix into Optimus Prime's, was with the President. The Secret Service had politely interrupted his Astronomy mid-term to tell him of Mikaela's kidnapping, at which point he spoke to Lennox and to Optimus. That was this morning. Prime and the rest of them teleported to Mars with the help of an amenable Decepticon.

Sam hadn't heard any report from Prime or 'Bee.

By the time he and the President were sitting through an entirely awkward lunch, and the call came from the Secret Service that Starscream had perched on the Bridge, Sam had sort of made his peace with Mikaela.

She died on Mars, or wherever it was they took her. Even if he couldn't accept it, he couldn't get the image out of his head.

So now, in the Presidential limo--the car to end all cars, with Keller and Morshower sitting two feet from him? Sam Witwicky, ordinarily the face of super-cool resistance to oddly inept Decepticons? He held back the tears.

And when the limo stopped and the Secret Service agents surrounded the thing and told him to sit his ass down and not move?

He still held back the tears.

And wished he could jump out and rip Starscream's head off.

It was, for the most part, a hell of a life he had for himself. Kill an evil robot dictator? Check. Save yourself over the good robot freedom fighter, and then bring him back to life to kill an even eviller alien dictator? Well, that was just icing on the cake.

Fact of the matter was that Mikaela had been kidnapped the night before last by Megatron's most vicious lieutenant.

When they were in Egypt, it was Starscream who shot up the Autobot convey trying to get to the soldiers and the body of Prime at Giza.

In Mission City, it was Starscream who flew in and handed both Ironhide and Ratchet their asses, in three seconds or less. Starscream who almost crushed Sam by kicking an SUV over him in the same ass-kicking moment.

It was Starscream whom Sam and the rest of them had to thank for letting Megatron get away.

All in all, he thought, and ran a weary hand through his hair, it was always Starscream.

One of the Secret Service mooks pulled the door open and said, "it wants to see you, sir" to Keller. Morshower followed him out.

Here was an entirely reasonable man who for once in his life, though he was not aware of it, held no strategic value.

For his own part, certainly Starscream could have killed them all. Slid out the Vulcan minigun and just blown his head into the next time zone. Killed all these Secret Service pests surrounding him and pointing their paltry human weapons at his leg armour.

Starscream could've burned that city to the ground and walked away unscathed.

But as before, on the Moon, clutching that piece of Man's history in his claw with all the aplomb of their human children, he didn't care to.

Keller stepped out of the limo slowly, carefully. His hands stayed in the air, like he was being held hostage. Partially, he supposed, this was true. Morshower stayed behind him.

Starscream was flipping the Jag's flattened bonnet cover in his manipulator. He caught sight of Defense Secretary Keller and his optics narrowed. His head cocked to one side. It was the closest approximation he could make to human curiosity.

Keller, to his credit, spoke evenly and without fear.

"Hi," he said. "What can we do for you?"

Were they all this nonplussed?

Starscream crouched and got close. The Secret Service mooks kept their feeble guns on him.

"Nothing," Starscream. "You are not the one I want."

Then he stood and his left manipulator formed into the missile launcher. Another reflexive jerk fired a missile at one of their SUVs, and the explosion sent it into the river.

Still, the vermin did not fire on him.

_Give me a reason to kill you_, he processed.

"We can't do that," Keller said. "Let's talk about--"

By now, a minor gaggle of helicopters hovered in the periphery by Roosevelt island, their onboard guns trained on Starscream. His audials picked up a fleet of something called Metro Police cars barrelling toward him from the capital. And further beyond, on the Arlington side, the distant boom of trucks--and likely, tanks--coming.

Keller was interested in compromise.

The Air Commander decided to give him a show.

He flung one arm toward Roosevelt and fired a missile at the closest helicopter.

It spun into the river, flaming. The men aboard screamed their lungs out as they fell to their deaths.

Then he turned back to Keller and the police and the Secret Service men.

He feigned rage and rasped, barely contained, "Give me the boy!"

Sam got out of the limo on hearing 'the boy'. Seemed their favourite nickname for him. He pushed his guardian Secret Service agent aside and walked right up to Starscream.

Again, the Air Commander cocked his head and flipped out the Vulcan minigun on his right manipulator. Aimed it right at the boy's head.

The barrel was as big as Sam's head, as long as the car.

Neither of them moved.

"What do you want?" Sam asked and crossed his arms over his chest.

Starscream's vox grumbled. More feigned anger. Or annoyance, more appropriately. Anger was Megatron's department. Starscream functioned better when motivated enough to rid his immediate existence of the varying failures and grotesqueries of ineptitude surrounding him. The current situation sent his processor into a mild frenzy. How he wished to vaporise them all.

How he wished to simply flee back to Cybertron and get back to the business of race-building.

Alas, this war. Alas, Megatron.

"You no longer fear us," Starscream merely said. He bent closer and relinquished the Vulcan minigun. "Why?"

Sam opened his mouth to answer. Then a shadow fell over all of them, but no airplane shadow.

It lingered over Sam, but only for a moment. Then it changed in shape, slimmed to the angular shape of a man. But larger. Fiercer.

Megatron landed at Starscream's side. The Secret Service vermin and Keller and Morshower all shrunk back. Shockwave and Thundercracker, both in robot mode, hovered in the air above him.

Sam squinted, and saw a very limp, very unconscious body in Thundercracker's claws. And watched as the blue-coloured Starscream set her down gingerly on the sidewalk.

_Oh shit it's her. _

When Megatron spoke, his vox was low and broken. If it was a human voice, it might have been phlegm or asthma causing it. As it was, the only thing keeping them all alive for the moment was Megatron's ability to contain his rage.

Barely.

"Yes," Megatron growled and pointed his fusion cannon at the boy. His free manipulator clutched one of the black Secret Services SUVs. "Why do you not fear us, boy?"

"I've beaten you before." It was all Sam could say without pissing his pants. Yes, he was terrified. But never let em know it. Never give in.

"That's true," Megatron said and seemed to relent. The fusion cannon powered down and he lowered that arm to his side and cocked his head. Oddly intrigued. "But as you can see, things are a little different now."

"Kill me," Sam said and there was a little voice of protest at the back of his head for that. "Burn this all to the ground. It won't matter. You won't get Optimus, and he's the one you want. Right?"

Megatron was silent.

Behind him, Starscream slunk into rank. Thundercracker and Shockwave followed.

"You need Optimus," Sam said. "Without him, there won't be a war. And you want that more than anything."

"I killed him before!" Megatron barked and clenched one claw around the Secret Service SUV, crushing it into a scrap sphere. "And I killed you."

"So we're even," Sam said. And started to crack. "Right? I mean, I kill you, you gotta kill me, that's-that's fair, right, sure."

Megatron's vox grumbled and he stood away from the boy.

In the next moment, Sam found a second wind. Or another place to argue from. Yeah, keep him busy. Wherever the hell Optimus and 'Bee were, they'd be here soon.

They had to be.

"I learned my lesson," Sam said innocently enough and pressed his hands to his chest. "Okay? Look, I stopped running from you. I ran away in LA and you knocked me off a building. I ran away from you in Egypt and you shot me dead. Okay? And killing one little human speck wasn't enough for you, you just had to go on killing." Sam took a deep breath. "So do whatever you want. You killed the love of my life. You probably killed Optimus and Bumblebee, too. So just shoot me. You're gonna kill us all. Why not start with me."

Megatron growled. His optics narrowed.

Then he looked away from the boy. Past the Presidential limos, to the DC side of the bridge. And saw them.

Him.

Prime. With Sideswipe and Bumblebee and Ironhide behind him. And more of them, doubtless, further afield. Autobot scum, running for him, their guns trained on him.

His optics widened and his arm formed into the fusion cannon.

Megatron bellowed. The sum of all his rage came forward in a distorted, bestial war cry.

"**_PRIME!_**"

The Lord of Cybertron unleashed in the next moment, stepping over Sam as if he hadn't even been there and crushing the Presidential limo underfoot in the process. Thundercracker fired his minigun and every missile he had. Shockwave transformed into a stationary howitzer the side of a house and started firing on Ironhide. Starscream took to the skies.

Prime and Bumblebee returned fire.

Sam fell to his knees and started crawling for cover. Explosions raged.

Sam couldn't see Morshower. Probably dead or vaporised. The Secret Service men, the five that were left, clung to Keller desperately. Huddled against the remaining black SUV, which was already riddled with errant bulletholes from Thundercracker's minigun.

Through the murk, Sam saw Mikaela lying on the ground, where Thundercracker had put her. He ran for her.

Behind him, the black SUV exploded and sent a hideous fireball into the air. The body of an agent, on fire and screaming, flew through the air and into the river. Sam stopped to look at the flaming hulk of the SUV and the few charred clumps of Human around the rear tyre-well, but only for a moment. His heart sunk. His face contorted into a sad and emotive little sneer.

Then he turned back for Mikaela.

They had to live this one through.

They had to.

He slid to the deck at her side and patted her face. He was crying. He kept one hand on her and wiped tears from his face with the other.

"Come on come on come on." He kept saying it and looking at her and the carnage ahead. Megatron and Optimus were fighting, destroying each other. Shockwave had taken to robot form and chosen Ironhide as the object of his hate. "Come on Mikaela wake up wake up come on."

She wasn't moving.

In the middle of the bridge, in the heat of battle with one another, neither Prime nor Megatron noticed that the bridge was starting to buckle.

* * *

**_Continued..._**


	6. Thundercracker

_**Author's Note**_: Well, we've arrived at the final instalment. If you're of the mind that I've taken a beloved movie property into some dark, dead-end, postmodern direction, then by all means call me on it. If the ending seems somehow rushed or tacked-on, lambaste away on that too. I probably deserve it. Even managed to surprise myself with how dark and very Edgar Allen Poe this one ended up. It should probably be noted, however, that over the course of the story I came to familiarise myself with and enjoy Starscream more and more. Guess that's probably obvious, which means in the follow-up I'll tone it down. And I'd like to think there will be a follow-up. Mostly because, for this being my first Transformers story, I've enjoyed these characters immensely and would love to return to them at some point. For now, though, I hope you enjoy this tale. Sure Prime doesn't figure into it as much as he should, and the Lennox/NEST subplot kind of fizzled, but I do hope that won't detract from what you're about to read. Elsewhere, we were going to make another instalment just about Unicron, but I decided to save that. Mostly because I haven't figured out how to properly movie-size Unicron yet. (In my mind so far, it's some terrible mixture of the 1986 film and _The Call of Cthulhu_.)

* * *

**Washington, D.C.**

**The Arlington Memorial Bridge.**

With nowhere else to go and no better ideas running through his head, Sam had thrown Mikaela, still unconscious, over his shoulder and taken refuge in the shell of the SUV. The good news was that it wasn't on fire anymore. The bad news was that less than three feet away were the charred bodies of what used to be Secretary Keller and his Secret Service detail.

Sam laid Mikaela out and kept patting her cheek every few seconds, and when h wasn't doing that he was looking over his shoulder to see what Optimus and the rest were doing.

Trying to make sure an errant payload wouldn't rip through them both, or an errant bullet didn't blow his head off.

He had to protect her.

That was priority one.

Thunder exploded behind him. Instinctively, and punctuating the explosion, he dove over Mikaela's body, covering her as much as his own head. He righted himself after a moment and looked around the edge of the SUV-husk.

Somehow, a crude semi-circle of the bridge had exploded. Been blown out. Probably a misfire of Megatron's arm cannon, Sam thought.

He started mumbling, repeating the same thing again and again. Seemed to be what he did in times like these.

He glanced back at Mikaela.

No. Don't go for Prime. Stay here. Stay with her.

He bit his lip and sat back. Took Mikaela's limp hand in his and squeezed.

"Come back," he said in a fractured voice. "Come back."

He looked up again.

Megatron had blasted Optimus into the river.

* * *

**The River.**

Megatron took the upper hand with ease.

Prime and the rest came charging toward him, brandishing their guns with all the reckless abandon of the humans' 'gunslingers'. The bravado didn't work, and Megatron blasted Ironhide away before focusing his efforts on Prime.

On Megatron, Prime got the first shot—a minor impact from Prime's pitiable ion rifle, aimed right at Megatron's spark.

Megatron paid it no mind and charged Prime.

The impact shook the bridge.

The Lord of Cybertron simply grabbed the leader of the opposition and flipped him over. Slammed him headfirst into the human artefact. And blasted his fusion cannon right at the back of Prime's head.

Then he'd hauled him up by what the humans might've called the scruff of his neck and thrown him into the river.

On his way into the water, Megatron blasted a hole in the bridge. For good measure.

Now Prime lay face down in the water and the obnoxious biological detritus he professed to protect.

Megatron stalked him slowly. His fusion cannon tight against his corpus and ready to fire.

"What did I say?" Megatron barked. "You fight for the weak!"

He fired.

The blast, which struck Prime in the shoulder, sent him reeling. A reactionary plume of water erupted around the fallen Autobot in a half-moon.

Prime got to one knee. Slowly. His ion rifle lay three metres away. He grabbed for it lazily, his manipulator shaking, on the verge of failure.

Megatron neared and plucked it out of the waters with his free manipulator.

"Your weapons have failed," Megatron said. His vox was a modulated, fractured rumble. "I'm aware of the varying grotesqueries which these obnoxious biological parasites have committed. And still you protect them. Still you bow to them."

Megatron crushed the ion rifle. Aimed his fusion cannon at Prime's head again.

When Megatron spoke again, he sounded sad. Distant. "You've wasted your life, Prime. And so recklessly..."

Prime looked up.

"No," was all he could manage.

The sky above Megatron seemed to darken.

It was the F-22s, nearly a thousand feet beyond Megatron, that Prime was looking at. Dark blades cutting across a cloudless sky in the human V-shape. Three of them.

Megatron looked up in the next instant.

Then he started shaking.

And bellowed Starscream's name.

He shot Prime a final derisive look, before training his fusion cannon on the lead jet. And firing.

Prime lay back down, anguished.

Stationary in the water, with Megatron's fusion cannon trained on the F22s as they lowered and made their own sights on him...

The jets never had a chance.

Megatron took down two F-22s by the time Starscream arrived to dispatch the third. The Air Commander contorted into robot mode, splash-landing alongside Megatron.

"Master," Starscream said and bowed ever so slightly. "How did the Autobots get here so quickly?"

"There is only one explanation," Megatron rumbled.

Starscream, as ever, seized his chance. "Skywarp," he said. "He's a traitor. We cannot allow him to further affect this battle!"

Megatron turned away. Laid one tank-tread foot on Prime's chest and enaged the rotors. Sparks flew in the next moment, followed by a weak protestation.

"Deal with him," Megatron said over his shoulder. "I want Prime's head!"

Starscream flew off again, heading toward the domed structure in the distance. The one the humans recorded histories, running through Starscream's processor that very instant, called 'The US Capitol Building'.

Whatever that meant.

A cursory glance back at the bridge ensured what Megatron already knew.

Thundercracker was better served in the air, picking off targets with abandon from a distance, but he worked as foot-soldier as well. In tandem with Shockwave, he was handily swatting away Ratchet and Bumblebee.

Megatron indulged a human token and cocked his head. Angled his fusion cannon at Ironhide, crawling away from Shockwave. And watched.

Watched Ironhide blast away at Shockwave and Thundercracker. Watched Thundercracker take to the skies—apparently using a Starscream-honoured fighting style—and Shockwave jump over the side and hide under one of the pylons.

Ironhide and Bumblebee crossed the bridge and, from his distant vantage, Megatron saw them bent over. Talking to someone.

Megatron's optics narrowed. If he was capable of human expression, he might have scowled.

_The boy._

Mercurially, Megatron cocked his head and waited.

Ironhide was asking Sam just what the hell he was doing here.

On the ground, prostrate, Mikaela's body across his lap, Sam merely said, "I'm just in all the wrong places at the wrong time, huh?"

"Not for long," Ironhide said. "Bumblebee, get him out of here."

Bumblebee was halfway into vehicle mode when Shockwave crawled back onto the bridge and cheap-shot him in the back.

Then Thundercracker blasted overhead and blew Ironhide's arm away.

Bumblebee crouched over Sam and Mikaela, shielding them from Shockwave's volley. When he got an opening, he fired back and knocked Shockwave to one knee. It wasn't much of a window, but it had to work.

He pointed toward Arlington and his radio hissed static, "Haul ass!"

Bumblebee turned back and fired into Thundercracker's chest, which forced the Seeker to fall back. Shockwave followed suit, if only out of fear of sole combat.

Sam stopped and looked back. A curious expression came across his face and he thought for a moment about going back for them. To help them.

On one knee and bleeding energon, Ironhide waved Sam on.

"Go!" he yelled. "We will protect you!"

From the DC side of the bridge, Ratchet and Sideswipe came running forward and firing straight at Thundercrcker.

Prowl and Ratchet stood side by side and fired a volley that exploded across Shockwave's torso. Megatron's lieutenant looked quizzical at his damage, then slunk back beneath the bridge.

Ratchet knelt and grabbed Ironhide's manipulator.

"Can you stand?"

"No," Ironhide bleated. "You must...fight them. Protect the others...Tell Optimus...I..."

Fifty metres away, Megatron fired.

Ironhide's head erupted in a firestorm.

Ratchet watched, frozen and aghast, as the flaming hulk fell over the side, and slammed into the water.

Then Ratchet fired at Megatron.

Megatron merely turned away. Thundercracker faced them alone, and from the look of it, he was winning. The Autobots were fumbling back towards DC. Being torn apart.

Megatron bent over Prime and slid out the broadside pincer on the fusion cannon's underside.

"I'll rip you apart with my bare hands."

* * *

**The Bridge.**

Sam had stayed leeward of the SUV-husk, but was no more anxious to see what was happening. He couldn't hear Ironhide's usual battle cries and umphs and declarations. Even the vague white noise of Bumblebee's radio wasn't there.

"What the hell what the hell what the hell."

He crawled slowly around the front of the SUV-husk and shrunk back, and nearly pissed himself, when he saw Morshower crawling around from the front end. He didn't know it was Morshower, and so indulged paranoiac terror. Fumbled backwards and started shrieking like a girl.

Morshower simply said, "Shut up!" and looked back around the husk. Pressed one finger to his mouth and made the same shush motion toward Sam. Sam nodded vigorously and clasped Mikaela's hand again.

"Who the hell are you?" Sam barked it. As much as he could while keeping it a whisper.

"General Morshower. You're Witwicky, right?"

"Yeah."

"Good, get that girlfriend of yours out of here. I've got an airstrike incoming."

"Huh?" Sam frowned. "Airstrike? I thought DC was a no-fly zone."

Morshower got in Sam's face, grabbed his lapels and pulled his close. The Chairman had a mad glint in his eye. His face and uniform were covered in soot and ash and, Sam guessed, motor oil.

"I just lifted the no-fly, son. We've got a shitload of hostiles not a goddamn mile from the President and the heart of this damn country! And it's a damn workday! If we don't stop them now, they're not going to be stopped, you understand?"

Sam nodded. Less because he understood and more because he was pants-wettingly terrified of the prospect of Megatron dive-bombing the White House.

Megatron wouldn't stop there.

Looking over Morshower's shoulder, at Megatron manhandling Prime in the middle of the Potomac, the truth finally struck home.

Megatron wouldn't stop at killing Prime.

Even if he turned Washington and London and Beijing and Moscow into ash-heaps.

He wouldn't stop.

Not until he turned this place back into the prehistoric fireball in which it had been formed.

Prime had said that to Megatron once. Months ago. 'You'll never stop at just one'.

And cowering behind a demolished tree branch, Sam had thought that hyperbole.

_No, Sammy._

_ It's true._

Megatron would kill them all. Starscream would watch.

"Oh shit."

Morshower snapped him out of it. "Get her out of here. Run your asses off. Into Arlington, into the woods. Get out of here."

"What about you?" Sam asked.

"I've got to direct the bombers. Good luck, son."

Morshower turned away. Pulled his sidearm and crawled back around the SUV-husk.

Sam sighed, a brief and childish shot of air out his nose. Then he picked up Mikaela, slowly, gently, and made for the Virginia side of the bridge.

On the DC side of the bridge, Morshower hid behind the wreckage of a green Jaguar. Ironhide was gone. Probably dead and floating out to sea by now. Ratchet and Prowl lay twisted and unmoving near the Lincoln Memorial roundel. Bumblebee was nowhere to be seen.

Out in the river, in water that went up to the robot equivalent of knees, Thundercracker and Shockwave had joined Megatron in his latest Prime beatdown.

It worked out well enough that Thundercracker and Shockwave weren't really participating. If they were, each would have to take a turn beating Prime and that would give him an opening to get up, to get his bearings back, and then start killing them.

As it was, Megatron was still laying into Prime with all the gusto and rage of a human pugilist.

Thundercracker and Shockwave were almost cheering.

Megatron kicked off Prime's faceplate.

And Prime found himself oddly preoccupied with another matter.

_Where is Starscream?

* * *

_

**The Capitol Building.**

As it turned out, Starscream circled Washington from two miles above it. A simple geoscan showed him what he wanted.

Skywarp was hiding on the eastern side of the Capitol dome.

_Hiding indeed._

Starscream twisted into robot form and slammed into the other side of the Dome. The impact shook the structure. He wrapped a claw around the tiny, comical human statue at the top, then wrenched it off.

"So," he said and leered over Skywarp's shoulder. "Why are you hiding?"

Skywarp simply disavowed him. Paid him no attention. The human expression—what was it?

_Guilt. How odd._

As silently as he could, Starscream slid out the minigun above his right manipulator and levelled it at the back of Skywarp's head.

"You spirited enemies away from Mars," he said. His vox grumbled, deep and self-satisfied. "Didn't you."

"Yes." It was all Skywarp could say. "My reasons are my own."

Starscream's optics burned bright. "Likewise."

Then he shattered Skywarp's collaborating head.

* * *

**The River.**

Megatron abandoned Prime. He joined Thundercracker and Shockwave on the bridge. As if to signal his entrance, and terror at the prospect of fighting him, the Autobots fell back, hiding behind the humans' Lincoln Memorial.

Megatron took the lead. The others fell behind him. Perfect servants.

There was no need to chase the Autobots. Megatron after all had all the time in world.

He merely lumbered forth. Scanning.

Hungering.

His optics narrowed and he laid a spindly claw on the Memorial's roof.

Marshalled on what the fleas called the National Mall, a quintet of tanks and something called National Guardsmen had their weapons trained on Megatron and his lieutenants.

Then they opened fire.

Megatron merely scowled. An oddly human motion.

And slid out the silvertine blade under his fusion cannon.

Cut the tanks down in a single snicker-snack while Thundercracker disposed of the fleas on foot.

Megatron crushed the remaining tank underfoot, then turned back to the Memorial. By now, it was on fire.

"Come out, Bumblebee!" he bellowed. "Your beloved leader lies wounded and disgraced. Your little resistance is over. Face me, Autobots! Warrior to warrior!"

A small litter of explosions followed, raking Megatron's shoulders and jet burners. He turned around and saw a gaggle of humans firing their insect weapons at him.

The military fleas that had killed Blackout in the city and thwarted the Decepticons in the desert.

With the human called Lennox leading them.

His optics burning, Megatron only bellowed his rage.

And fired.

His fusion cannon vaporised the first group. Lennox remained, running an erratic pattern. His counterpart, identified as Epps, followed. Both fired vainly.

And Megatron lumbered toward them. Back onto the bridge. Toward the burned-out shell of what had been Keller's SUV and Keller's body.

There was no need to hurry.

Out in the river, Prime was kneeling. Shaking. At great pains to even stand.

Megatron's vox rumbled and he fired indiscriminately. The blast caught Prime in the chest and sent him back to the muck.

Ahead, the soldiers were no longer firing.

They were no longer there.

Megatron stopped. Looked around. Behind him, Shockwave and Thundercracker readied their weapons.

Then the Lord of Cybertron looked slowly north. At a trio of B-1 bombers cutting across the sky. Closing on them quickly, inexorably.

Thundercracker glanced, surreptitious, at Shockwave and Megatron. Then he fled.

Megatron roared again and opened fire.

It was too late.

The bombers released their deadly payloads.

The Arlington Memorial Bridge, what was left of it, exploded in the next instant, a brilliant fireball in the vague shape of a mushroom. Not at all nuclear, but for a moment shining brighter than the sun. Brick and water and earth flew in every direction.

The smoke hung heavy. As it drifted skyward it seemed to blot out the sun. At the epicentre, in a crater five metres deep, lay Shockwave, twisted and unmoving. Further on the periphery, Megatron lay face down in the water. So did Prime.

Starscream had taken up residence atop the Washington Monument. He saw the whole thing. And when he discerned Thundercracker's flight, despite every shred of logic that compelled him to follow suit, Starscream took to the skies.

He would make something out of this yet.

* * *

**Arlington.**

Sam got to his hands and knees slowly, painfully. The blast had blown him and Mikaela quite literally into Arlington County. She lay at his side, eyes still closed, body still limp. But stirring. More than before at least. He looked toward the crater in the river.

Smoke poured from it in great heaving rolls. A perimeter of fire circled the upthrust earth, and Sam wondered remotely if that was what napalm looked like.

At his side he heard murmurs.

He looked down, eyes wide with disbelief.

He started laughing and crying alternately when Mikaela looked up at him.

"What...what'd I miss?"

Lennox and Epps and what remained of their squad waded through the river slowly. Lennox in the lead, his rifle trained on the centre of the crater. At whatever might decide to come out of the thing.

"Hold up," he said. Epps and the rest stopped. And waited.

Still, Megatron came without warning.

Ordinarily, he was a colossal figure. Dwarfing Bumblebee nearly twice over.

He rose out of the flames and the smoke and they all saw it in some distant kind of slow-motion.

His body, native Cybertronian—for he had eschewed adopting an Earth disguise—was covered in flames. Residuals of bombing.

The flimsy human projectiles had exploded right on top of him. All around him. And yet here he was.

His arms were spread in a wide offertory. Come and get me.

Megatron stared at Lennox, tiny and motionless and beneath him in every sense of the phrase.

He contemplated destroying the rest of the soldier fleas and readied his fusion cannon to that end.

Then his sensors discerned the boy, standing on the ruins of a pylon. Gawking at what by his reckoning must've seemed the third failed death of Megatron. Staring. Like the flea he was.

The soldiers still fired their pointless weapons at him.

From DC, Bumblebee was the first into the river. Charging Megatron. Hoping to reclaim the boy. As was his wont. And as vain as ever.

Megatron leapt over Lennox. At apogee he unleashed his fusion cannon on the river below and vaporised all but Epps and Lennox. Those he left. To encourage the others, as the human idiom went.

Megatron landed in a low crouch. Epps and Lennox kept fired their pointless weapons at him.

Starscream blasted through the smoke a moment later. He landed quickly and snatched up Sam.

Megatron was already airborne.

"Get him!"

It was the dirtiest trick Starscream had pulled in some time. And he was the greatest master of the dirty trick:

Coming for the boy just slow enough to let the boy see him, and see the reality of the situation. Allowing the boy just enough time to look back on his human paramour in horror.

Before the Air Commander seized him from her outstretched hand. And shuffled him into the cockpit. And blasted into the air.

* * *

Weeks pass.

Megatron returns to the throne of his old master. He consumes the sparks of Skids and Mudflap and mounted their heads on pikes before the throne.

Thundercracker comes crawling back a week after the battle in Washington, ready to die for Megatron all over again, claiming, probably erroneously, that a conversation with Soundwave had changed his mind, and professing a deep terror of what the Lord of Cybertron would do to him. For his compliance, Megatron forgives him with a blast to the face and tasks him with the repair of the ship.

Starscream, as it turns out, gets the most from the battle in Washington. Days later and right under the humans' noses, he returns to Earth and spirits the bodies of both Skywarp and Ironhide away. The former is easy, for no one misses a traitorous Decepticon. The latter is only slightly more difficult, for the Autobots believe Ironhide's body lost. Starscream also takes it upon himself to care for Sam Witwicky, synthesizing sustenance for the boy and keeping him relatively pacified. As calm as one could be in such a situation, of course.

For his own part, Megatron allows Starscream's initiative. His treacherous inclinations seem at an all-time low. And sitting with the boy, staring out at the Martian night and the unending fury of a Martian sandstorm scouring the planet, Starscream allows himself a shred of humour at his master's newfound trust. The Air Commander has really done so little to cement his newfound authority. Simply outlived everyone else. Outsmarted. That was the trick.

On Earth, the federal government pours priority funding into the rebuilding of Arlington Memorial Bridge, similar to the restoration of the Pentagon after 9 11. It's open to traffic after a month.

Since no one, not even the Autobots and not even his lover Mikaela Banes, could verify that Samuel James Witwicky survived the battle in DC, the federal government orders a pre-emptive multimillion-dollar settlement to his family to avoid any legal entanglements. His mother remits the money to the State Department with an angry note that tells them to "shove it."

A token funeral is held. There's nothing to bury. Within a month, Judy Witwicky becomes convinced that, unlike his lover Mikaela, her only son won't be coming back. Two more funerals are held in Washington. One for Chairman Morshower, and another for Defense Secretary John Keller, both cut down during the fight on Arlington Bridge. By Presidential Order, both receive State Funerals and lie in state at the Capitol.

On the USS _John C. Stennis_ over the Laurentian Abyss, the Autobots hold a similar token funeral for Ironhide and the Twins. Here, too, there's nothing to bury. Since they lack other viable options, they return to Diego Garcia. Bumblebee and Prime promise to search far and wide for Sam, but in their sparks, they doubt very much that Megatron has kept him alive.

On Mars, the _Nemesis_ takes flight after a month of repair and preparation.

Per Megatron's order, the destination is Cybertron.

* * *

**_The End..._**


End file.
